Saiyan Saga

The Saiyans

Saiyans (サイヤ人; Saiya-jin)

The most importance race in the Dragon Ball's lore since Goku is part of this mighty warrior race. While much of the backstory of the Saiyans remain a mystery, what we do know is that they didn't originate from Planet Vegeta. Their original homeworld, Planet Sadal, was destroyed during in-fighting before they invaded Planet Plant, killing the Truffles. Some time after that, their planet was annexed by Frieza's Empire. For years, they worked as part of Frieza's attack force, being some of Frieza's strongest fighters, while also suffering under Fantastic Racism by the Frieza Force. Despite their hard work, however, Frieza decided to eliminate the Saiyans out of fear of their growing power, the legend of the Super Saiyan and Super Saiyan God, and the fact that the Saiyans were too free will to ever be truly loyal to him. To that end, he recalled all the Saiyans back to Planet Vegeta, planning to destroyed the planet in a month's time. This tipped off Bardock that something was wrong and he and his wife sent off their youngest child Kakarot for his protection.

What happens next varies between mediums, but the most common plot points are that the Saiyans rebel against Frieza and King Vegeta personally led an attack. He is easily killed and Bardock alone launches one final assault against Frieza, only for him to be killed along with Planet Vegeta. This reduced the Saiyan's numbers to just four, five if you count Tarble, making them functionally extinct outside of the hybrids.

In the current story, the Saiyans are experiencing a bit of a resurgence thanks to them breeding with humans, creating powerful hybrid Saiyans who are far stronger and less violent than their pure-blooded counterparts. They are also not evil anymore thanks to the influence of the Earthlings.

Achilles' Heel: Grabbing a Saiyan's tail can disabled them if they haven't trained themselves to overcome this weakness.

Always Chaotic Evil: Played With. Saiyans are known across the universe for being a race of coldblooded, murderous monsters to the point that the Galactic Patrol assigned people like Jaco to kill their babies when they were sent to planets. There are a few pacifists born among them, but they are the exception. Frieza wiping out the Saiyans is mostly seen as a good thing. At the same time, the surviving Saiyans in the story are good to the point of being the universe's greatest protectors. They are also a great deal more powerful than they ever were when they were evil.

Animal Motifs: Monkeys, of course. Just like Son Goku, Saiyans have monkey tails and can transform into the Great Ape.

Asshole Victim: While it was terrible of Frieza to kill the Saiyans after all the loyal work they did under him, it's hard to feel sorry for them since they were genocidal Space Pirates. This feeling is carried over to characters like Goku and King Kai. They both see the fate of the Saiyans as karma and Goku even tells Frieza that the Saiyans paid for their mistakes.

Asskicking Equals Authority: King and Prince Vegeta were by far the strongest Saiyans to ever exist. Planet Vegeta, it was named after King Vegeta, not the other way around. Saiyans can also raise up the ranks by getting stronger as Toriyama notes since most Saiyans were classified as low-class warriors with only a handful of mid-tier Saiyans.

Badass Crew: Saiyans form teams to help them conquer worlds. The most well-known teams are Bardock's crew and the remaining Saiyans led by Vegeta during the Saiyan Saga.

Bizarre Alien Biology: The Saiyans are Human Aliens who are insanely aggressive and love to fight, have tails, and can transform into giant apes in the light of the full moon if they still have their tails. Not to mention if they are put close to death and recover, they increase in strength exponentially. Despite this, they can interbreed with humans.

Blood Knight: With the exceptions of Tarble and Gine, all Saiyans love fighting and have a strong bloodlust. Even the peaceful Son Goku is an unrepentant blood knight who will put a good battle over friends and family's safety. This also applies to the half-Saiyan to a lesser extent. Although the hybrids don't have the need to fight like pure-blooded Saiyans, they still enjoy sparring, play fights, and watching fights.

Came Back Strong: A racial trait of all Saiyans. After recovering from mortal wounds, they become much stronger. However, this does diminished over time as the Saiyan becomes stronger. Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Future Trunks, Goten, and Trunks don't really get near death boost anymore.

Challenge Seeker: Saiyans love to fight and to be push to their limits. Raditz even tries to used this trait to lure Goku into joining them by promising great battles instead of living peacefully with weak humans.

Child Soldier: As soon as a Saiyan child is out of the incubator, they're ready to be sent out to conquer planets. Goku was only three when he was sent to Earth, yet Raditz fully expected him to wipe the planet in a few years. Raditz himself was part of Vegeta's team when he was only seven and Vegeta is only a little older than him.

Deliberately Cute Child: The entire Saiyan race is this trope. Saiyans have long childhoods to stay cute and young to throw off their enemies, thinking they're harmless, before quickly growing into their adult size.

The Dog Bites Back: They tried this against Frieza, but he ended up killing most of the Saiyans without even trying. This is Played Straight with Vegeta who manages to ruined Frieza's plan for immortality and destroy most of his army with his rebelling on Namek.

The Dreaded: The Saiyans are widely feared across the universe as the strongest warrior race. Even Frieza fears them, which is part of the reason he chose to wipe them out before they grow in numbers and strength. The Galactic Patrol sends their patrolmen to find and kill Saiyan babies that invade planets. If killing them isn't an option, they Mercy Kill the population so they won't suffer.

Enfant Terrible: Saiyan babies are well known for being ill-temper and violent, especially by human standards. Goku tried to kill Grandpa Gohan and was an absolute terror to the old man despite his good intentions.

Evil Counterpart: What they are to the Universe 6 Saiyans who are protectors of justice.

Fantastic Racism: They're both on the receiving and giving end of this. On a whole, Saiyans are treated like second-class citizens among the Frieza Force since they're seen as brutal and stupid monkeys. On the other hand, Saiyans have no respect for any species that isn't them.

At the start of Z, the Saiyans were a race feared by the universe. Having even a Saiyan baby sent to a planet was considered a death sentence. The entire cast of Earth was terrified of them and saw them as the greatest threat the Earth had ever faced, far worse than the reign of King Piccolo. Over a decade later, the Saiyans and those who carry their blood are consider the greatest champions of not only the Earth, but the entire universe. The remaining Saiyans also became far stronger than they ever were when they were evil.

One of their most powerful transformations, Super Saiyan God, is only accessible to those who have righteous hearts, something that the Saiyans looked down on.

Jerkass: The vast majority of Saiyans are this. They take pleasure and causing pain and wiping out civilizations to satisfy their bloodlust. Even the nicer Saiyans like Bardock and his crew feel nothing about the people they murdered.

Karmic Death: After decades of being remorseless Space Pirates who caused the genocide of dozen of races, the Saiyans were pushed to the brink of extinction by their own benefactor.

Karmic Jackpot: By abandoning their evil ways, the remaining Saiyans reached levels far beyond their own comprehension including godhood.

Killer Space Monkey: The Saiyan race in a nutshell. They can even transform into giant monkeys under a full moon that increase their overall power by ten times.

Laser-Guided Karma: Happen both ways. After years of being Space Pirates, they're wiped out by their own boss and become functionally extinct as a species. By the few remaining Saiyans becoming good, they get to rebuild their race with powerful hybrids and two of the survivors become the strongest Saiyans in history.

Little Bit Beastly: Although they may look human, they have monkey tails that can be used as a fifth limb. However, most of the adult Saiyans used their tails as glorified belts.

Long-Lived: Zigzagged. On a whole, Saiyans have a longer lifespan than humans. According to Vegeta, a Saiyan is still considered young up to their 80s since they are a warrior race that stay in their prime longer so they can keep fighting. At the same time, because of their lifestyle, they tend to die young.

Master Race: They fully see themselves as the strongest race in the universe bar none. They're not too far off the mark given how powerful Goku, Vegeta, and their descendants become throughout the series.

Mysterious Past: Despite being the most important race to the Dragon Ball's lore, there is very little known about the Saiyans. Like we don't know how or even when they build their alliance with Frieza or how did they get the technology to travel to other worlds after they destroyed their original home world. The biggest question is how can the Saiyans become gods when no other species so far have such ability. Even Golden Frieza, whose power surpasses those of a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan, have no god energy.

Nigh-Invulnerability: They're a highly durable race, being able to withstand attacks that would instantly kill a normal person without having the ability to regenerate like the Namekians. Vegeta survives a Great Ape landing on him when he was already critically injured and Goku survives having all his bones crushed and his heart pierced by a laser. Even wounds that are fatal to them takes several minutes to kill them. Vegeta gets his heart pierced by Frieza and still has time to give a grand speech to Goku before dying, something Frieza lampshades. Goku and Raditz are both impaled on Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon, yet Piccolo personally crushes Raditz's head in to stop him from talking and Goku lived for several minutes before succumbing to his injuries.

No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: As a race of Challenge Seekers, they like fighting strong people who they can test their skills against. At the same time, however, they don't like fighting opponents who can beat them. They prefer to fight people who can give them a reasonable challenge before they stomp them. If faced with a superior opponent, they have Villainous Breakdowns like Nappa and Vegeta. Goku is unique in that he wants to battle people who can defeat him and even overpowers him. The greater the odds, the more excited he gets.

One-Man Army: A single Saiyan child can wipe out a planet's population in just a few years. Goku shows us first hand how it's done when he wipes out the Red Ribbon Army by himself. On the adult side, Vegeta shows us the power of a fully trained elite warrior when he destroys the Frieza Force on Namek almost by himself.

Our Werebeasts Are Different: All Saiyans have the ability to transform under the light of a full moon if they still have their tails. However, a Saiyan have to be trained to control it, otherwise they become mindless beasts that attack everything in sight.

Physical God: The Saiyans have the ability to reach godhood by becoming a Super Saiyan God. However, to do this they need the light of five righteous Saiyans united into one and the power-up is only temporary. At least until Goku comes along.

Planet of Hats: The Saiyans were introduced by Goku. Once Raditz comes we learned that all Saiyans are freaking strong, transform into giant apes under a full moon, are prideful, and are Blood Knights. Goku is unique among his race because he doesn't have the Saiyan bloodlust. This is a combination of being raise on Earth, a head injury, and inheriting his mom's good nature. Part of the justification for the Saiyans is that there were good Saiyans, but they were banished or repressed by the more violent parts of their race. The Saiyans' dark nature was also exploited by Frieza who used them to wipe planets and made them advance too fast so they never evolved past their barbaric ways.

Proud Warrior Race Guy: The hat of the entire Saiyan race. They pride themselves in being a warrior race to the point that weak or passive Saiyans are treated like outcasts.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: King and Prince Vegeta fights on the front lines with the other Saiyans. Vegeta even had his own crew before Frieza destroyed Planet Vegeta.

Slave Race: How the Saiyans are overall treated by the Frieza Force, which is why the Saiyans resent Frieza so much. Part of the reason why Frieza decides to wipe them out is because he realizes that the Saiyans can never truly be loyal to him.

Smug Super: A common trait among the Saiyans, including the hybrids. They are the strongest warrior race in the universe and they're fully aware of it.

The Social Darwinist: Mixed with Fantastic Racism, Saiyans looked down on other species and saw it as their right to wipe them out since they're weaker than them. This also applied to themselves since weak babies who were killed on missions was considered trimming the fat.

The Spartan Way: As a warrior race that believes in constant training and one's strength as the ultimate virtue, they fit this mindset perfectly. They even sent their toddles to conquer planets whose inhabitants are weak enough for their children to slaughter.

Super Mode: Similar to the Great Ape transformation, Saiyans have the ability to become Super Saiyans. The requirements are kind of vague, but it is stated that a pure heart and being a certain power level is needed for a Saiyan to transform into this state. According to Cabba, a Saiyan from Universe 6, anger is needed for the first transformation. After that, a Saiyan only needs to focused their energy into their backs to become Super Saiyan. There are also the god Super Saiyan forms. Super Saiyan God requires the light of five righteous Saiyans pouring their power into another Saiyan and the requirements for Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan are vague outside of having good energy control.

Superpower Lottery: They grow stronger from every battle and near-death experience, are naturally very strong, and with enough training and rage are able to reach a super state that multiples their power fifty times over, and that's just a regular Super Saiyan. Even a normal Saiyan can transform into a Great Ape (if they have their tails and a full moon) that raise their overall power by 10X. They can even become real Physical Gods in an universe filled with physical gods. They are closed to being indestructible even without a healing factor. Outside vaporizing them or destroying vital organs, Saiyans are hard to kill. And the real kicker, their human-hybrids are even more powerful.

Super Senses: Saiyans, if we go by Goku, have a super scent. At one point, Goku states that his nose is as sharp as a dog's. Saiyans also appear to have better eyesight than humans since Goku is able to see people from far distances before anyone else even noticed anything and, as of Super, Saiyans have better hearing than humans too since Goku heard Bulma talking through a wall, when she wasn't talking that loud.

Takes One to Kill One: When they are introduced, the Saiyans are so overwhelmingly powerful compared to any enemy that the Earth has ever faced that even after a year of training the Earth's fighters can't even take down Nappa, who is far weaker than Vegeta. Only Goku and Gohan are able to turn the tides and repel the Saiyans. Goku is a Saiyan and Gohan is a Saiyan hybrid.

Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Saiyan children in general are very disturbing by human standards. Upon meeting Grandpa Gohan for the first time, Kakarot tried to kill him despite being only three years old. They may look cute and innocent, but looking is as far as it gets.

Tykebomb: Saiyan children are taught at a young age to be ruthless killing machines. As a toddler, Raditz expected Goku to kill everyone on Earth and Raditz was helping Vegeta conquer worlds when he was about seven years old.

Virtue Is Weakness: In general, they believe traits like compassion, forgiveness, love, and even family bonds to be weaknesses. They call it 'going soft' and it's part of the reason Vegeta despises Goku for so long. He's a Saiyan who gained such power in spite of these 'weaknesses'.

White Sheep: Tarble and Gine are born as pacifist Saiyans who didn't share the bloodlust and battle instincts of their race. Tarble is sent into exile by his father while Gine is consider a failed soldier who work in the meat factory. Goku zigzags since he was quite violent as a toddler and calmed down after he hit his head. At the same time, it's hinted that he inherited his mother's kind heart, which is partly why he became a good person.

The Worf Effect: The entire Saiyan race is subjective to this. They are the most powerful warrior race in the universe and just three of them brought the Z-Fighters to their knees. They only survived because Goku and Gohan are Saiyans themselves. Frieza wipes out an entire planet of Saiyans with just his finger. Before that, he personally killed King Vegeta, the strongest Saiyan alive at the time.

Raditz

Raditz (ラディッツ; Radittsu)

Goku's brother and the first villain introduced in the Z series. Sent to check up on Goku's progress of Earth's conquest only to find his brother a changed person. Ends up kidnapping Gohan which prompts the legendary alliance between Goku and Piccolo.

Arc Villain: Begins the most recognized part of the Dragon Ball series.

Spends the vast majority of the fight against Goku and Piccolo boasting about his own superiority over them. And he's only a relatively mild example compared to Vegeta and Nappa...

Gets subverted as the arc goes on: while he is generally cocky and arrogant when he has the upper hand, he immediately begins to panic and turns into a Dirty Coward when he begins to lose control over a fight.

Downplayed in Xenoverse, he's much more competent and less cowardly than his anime and manga counterpart, likely because he has powered up, and was controlled by Towa, and yet he was still easily defeated.

Ax-Crazy: Not in the anime/manga itself, but some depictions of him in the games seem to accentuate his more hotheaded traits to be borderline crazy.

Big Bad Wannabe: When he first shows up, he seems to be a unstoppable menace the likes of which has never been seen before. But it turns out that in the larger scale of things, he's just a glorified Elite Mook for Vegeta. He becomes an even smaller fish compared to the overall pond of Frieza's mooks — especially since both Nappa and Vegeta are stronger than he is, and even a Saibaman is equal to him in power, which the Z Fighters are able to easily dispatch by the time Nappa and Vegeta arrive.

Big Brother Bully: An extreme case for Goku. First, he kidnapped Goku's son (his nephew) and attempted to force Goku to kill one-hundred humans by the end of the day. When that didn't work, he tried to murder his brother for refusing to join him and attempted to kill Gohan for his hidden power. He's the textbook evil brother.

Blood Knight: Like all Saiyans, loves to fight and has a strong blood-lust. He even tried to get Goku to join him by talking about all the battles they can have in space.

Boss in Mook Clothing: He's only slightly stronger than a Saibaiman, and Vegeta remarks with disappointment that he died to people who were barely over 1000 in Power Level. That said, he did require Goku to team up with Piccolo and perform a Heroic Sacrifice just to beat him. In fact, the fact that he's in such low regard to the other two Saiyans takes everyone by surprise.

Nappa: "Yeah, I getcha! Raditz, that chicken weakling, let himself be fooled by the power readings!"

Piccolo: "Raditz was a weakling?!"

The Brute: Has few notable personality traits, and all of his screen time consists of brutally beating down the heroes, going out of his way to make them suffer for being weaker than him.

Cain and Abel: The Cain to Goku's Abel, to the point that it results in the latter's first death.

Child Soldiers: According to Dragon Ball Minus, he became a full fledged warrior at the age of seven. This seems typical of the Saiyans who send their babies into space.

Dirty Coward: Rather ironic that he is one, considering that he comes from a race composed of Blood KnightDeterminators who actually would prefer death when defeated in battle than living with the shame of losing, especially to someone of a weaker caste level than themselves. Begging for your life seems to be a trademark of Frieza's army. Also Raditz in particular being a coward justifies his comparatively low power level: Saiyans get stronger after recovering from life-threatening injuries. Cowards are less likely to get those kinds of injuries.

Even Evil Has Standards: In an anime only flashback, both Raditz and Nappa are horrified to discover that Vegeta did not care that their race got wiped out, stating that they all deserved to die for being weak. (Note that his own parents were among those killed.)

Evil Counterpart: To Goku. They both love to fight and were born on the low end of the power scale of Saiyan society. Goku is brave (not afraid of death) and chose to grow stronger instead of choosing to stay as a "low class." Raditz is a coward who begs for his life when he's about to be killed and remained weak because he hid behind people much stronger than him instead of trying to improve his own skill.

Evil Uncle: Kidnapped Gohan with the intention to raise him as a real Saiyan, and using him as bait for Goku.

Fantastic Racism: Like most Saiyans seen on-screen, he has a very low opinion of anyone who isn't a Saiyan. After Goku sacrificed himself to stop him, Raditz mourns that his brother would lay down his life for what he consider an inferior species.

The Farmer and the Viper: During the fight, Goku grabs Raditz's tail to give Piccolo an opening to kill him with the Special Beam Cannon. Raditz begs Goku for mercy, promising to leave Earth if Goku does so; over Piccolo's protests, Goku grants Raditz's mercy... and Raditz promptly knocks Goku down and ruthlessly breaks his ribs, all while rubbing in his face how stupid it was of him to fall for it. When Gohan critically injures Raditz and Goku has him restrained so Piccolo can finish him off, Raditz tries the same trick again; unfortunately for him, Goku isn't dumb enough to fall for the same ploy twice.

Foil: To his little brother, Goku. Both are overachievers much like their father before them, born low-class yet fortunate enough to become elite by attrition after their race was wiped out. While Goku embraced the gentle heart given to him by his mother and works his entire life to break the limits of his birth, like his father, Radtiz chose to hide behind others stronger than him while embracing the ruthlessness of being a Saiyan, rejecting his mother's kind influence. Also, despite Goku's gentle and kind nature, he maintained his Saiyan pride and spirit, while Radtiz's Saiyan spirit has long been driven out of him despite his claims to the contrary.

The Friend Nobody Likes: Vegeta and Nappa have little respect for him and Vegeta scoffs at the idea of using the Dragon Balls to bring him back to life. Nappa does, however, care enough about him to suggest bring him back to life, while still calling him an idiot for getting killed.

Hate Sink: There's not one shred of likability to Raditz whatsoever; he's a brute, a bully, and a Dirty Coward all in one, and not even a credit to his race. Honestly, it's no wonder Goku never wanted to find out anything more about his Saiyan heritage or his birth parents if there was even the slightest chance they were as bad as Raditz.

Heel Realization: Granted, a non-canon one, but a what-if version of the Saiyan Saga that plays out in Budokai Tenkaichi 2 has Raditz suffer amnesia, train alongside Goku and Gohan, becoming a valued ally against Piccolo. He later regains his memories and grudgingly (due to the threat of Vegeta and Nappa) resumes his conquest of the Earth. He is trounced by the combined might of Goku, Krillin, Gohan, and Piccolo, and learns what "true strength" is: defending those who cannot defend themselves. In addition, Raditz gets a (surprisingly touching) dream sequence where he admits to his long-dead father that he not only misses him, but that Raditz—despite his boasts—considers himself a weakling. At the end of the story, Raditz pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to stop Vegeta and Nappa from reaching the Earth (by crashing his ship into theirs), warning his young sibling about the threat of an even greater monster that the Saiyans serve.

Horrible Judge of Character: Raditz apparently believed that Nappa and Vegeta would revive him after they got to Earth, as he says that his only regret is that he won't be back in time to see them kill the people of Earth. On the contrary, while Nappa does indeed suggest reviving Raditz, Vegeta shoots the idea down, stating that reviving a weakling like Raditz would be a waste, instead opting to wish for immortality. Nappa does not argue against this and quickly agrees.

Hot-Blooded: While relatively calm when compared to Vegeta and Nappa, Raditz becomes this when he's in full battle mode.

Hypocrite: He explicitly labels Goku a disgrace to all Saiyans for his softness and compassion, but he himself isn't exactly a credit to their race either. As a whole, Saiyans are Blood Knights who are all about their pride to the extent that they'd rather die than live with the shame of losing to a weaker opponent, whereas Raditz is a Smug Snake and a Dirty Coward who bullies those weaker than him and begs for his pathetic life when he loses control of a situation.

I Surrender, Suckers: Swears to leave in peace if Goku spares his life after his tail is grabbed and he is at the mercy of Piccolo's Special Beam Cannon. Goku takes him at his word and lets him go, only to be kicked in the face and have his ribs broken.

During his "Reason You Suck" Speech to Goku, he claims that their parents would be ashamed of him for turning out so weak and not a ruthless Saiyan like him. This is ironic given that their mother was a failed soldier and their father fell in love with her despite this fact. Bardock also came to embrace his softer side, which is why Goku is even on Earth.

Raditz also tells Goku that he isn't a true Saiyan warrior since he lacks their ruthless and cold nature. The irony is that Raditz himself isn't a true Saiyan warrior given that their race value their pride above all else and would never stoop as low as to beg for mercy to a weaker opponent, even if it is a trick. Raditz also succumbed to fear in the face of death, while other Saiyans, including his brother, showed cold defiance to their killers.

It Only Works Once: Begging Goku for mercy when faced with the Special Beam Cannon worked the first time; thankfully, Goku wasn't stupid enough to fall for the same ploy twice.

Jerkass: It wasn't enough that he bullies his opponents in a fight. He also kidnapped his nephew, tried to murder his baby brother, and when his brother grew up, he came to visit him only to force him into destroying the planet he's on, and had no hesitation in trying to kill him, if he didn't do as he said. He's basically a horrible being, who's perfectly fine with killing his own family members, if they don't obey him.

He kidnaps his own nephew so he can 'raise' him into a proper Saiyan, and bait Goku into joining them, after he kills one-hundred humans.

After receiving mercy from his brother, he knocks him down and sadistically crushes all his ribs while saying that Goku is a soft-hearted idiot. He then tries to murder Gohan because he had a higher battle power than him. This becomes even worse when you consider that his mother was also soft-hearted and would have been upset by Raditz's behavior.

Knight of Cerebus: As soon as he arrived on Earth and delivered the Wham Line that Goku is in fact a member of an elite ruthless alien warrior race, you knew that the tone and direction of the series would be changed forever. So much so that for the anime, his appearance officially marked the transition from the original series to Z.

Lack of Empathy: He notably takes advantage of Goku's own empathy, and pummels him as a result, laughing at his younger brother's gullibility. Of course, he should've thought about doing this in frontof Gohan... On the other hand, he does express genuine grief that Goku would actually sacrifice himself for what he considers to be a bunch of weaklings unworthy of protection.

Laser-Guided Amnesia: Raditz suffers this—in an echo of his younger brother's memory loss—in the Tenkaichi 2 what-if version of the Saiyan Saga mentioned above. Raditz's memory loss is brought about by a defective Saibaman exploding in his face. While Raditz retains all of his might (and pent-up resentment at being called "weak"), he becomes more docile. His full memory is painfully reawakened upon seeing Gohan's tail.

Little Bit Beastly: He has a tail, which shocks Goku and his friends since it's exactly like the tail Goku had as a child.

Mauve Shirt: Frieza at least knows his name and he would be considered fairly powerful among the ranks of the Frieza Force.

Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: At the beginning of Z. He's a very low-level minion of Frieza's, but on Earth, he easily pulls off a Bullet Catch against a shotgun-wielding farmer and is powerful enough to curb-stomp both Goku and Piccolo, the two strongest beings on the planet, simultaneously.

O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In a flashback, we see both Raditz and Nappa react with horror when Vegeta says that he does not care that their race is dead. While Nappa shows some traces of humanity elsewhere, this is the only time Raditz ever displays a positive side, to hammer in how shocking Vegeta's lack of empathy is even to other Saiyans.

Outside-Genre Foe: This is part of the reason why he was so unstoppable when he was first introduced. Although Piccolo is an alien, he was mostly raised on Earth and was thought to be a type of demon. Raditz not only formally introduced aliens to the series, but also showed that the fighters on Earth are insects compared to the true monsters in the universe. Raditz isn't even an Elite Mook and yet he completely dominated the Earth's best fighters with ease.

Pet the Dog: Twistedly crossed with Kick the Dog in Xenoverse. After undertaking his Parallel Quest and helping him beat Goku, Piccolo, and potentially Gohan, he spares Goku's life, and decides to take him along to destroy a few planets with him and get his killer instinct back. While destroying planets is, obviously, evil, it still shows that deep down Raditz really does love and care about his brother... on his own terms.

Poor Communication Kills: If Gine had told Raditz she'd sent his brother to Earth for his own protection, Raditz probably wouldn't have gone there and got himself killed.

Proud Warrior Race Guy: Only surpassed in this by Nappa and Vegeta. The sole reason he antagonizes Goku is because of his refusal to accept his Saiyan heritagenote Granted, "accepting his Saiyan heritage" included having to commit genocide on the entire population of Earth, which was unacceptable to Goku.

Sadistic Choice: Gives Goku one when they meet: either Goku kills 100 humans within the next 24 hours and joins Frieza's army, or Raditz kills Gohan. Goku, of course, Takes a Third Option and forms an Enemy Mine with Piccolo to take him out.

Small Role, Big Impact: Believe it or not, Raditz is essentially the catalyst for the entire second half of the Dragon Ball manga. Had Raditz not remembered his little brother and come to Earth, the entire series would have been turned on its head: Piccolo and Goku would never have teamed up and thus Piccolo wouldn't have joined the Z-Fighters. He may have even remained evil, and continued on with a plan to terrorize planet Earth, had he and Goku not joined forces. Goku wouldn't have trained with King Kai, but merely at his own pace, and would have been far too weak to combat the androids by the time they arrived, assuming he hadn't already died from the heart virus he was to contract (though a theory is that he got it during his trip on Yardrat). Gohan would never been trained by Piccolo, and thus would never have become a fighter at all. Vegeta and Nappa would never have received the transmission involving the Dragon Balls, and thus would never have visited the Earth, thus remaining under Freeza's thumb — Freeza himself would also never have been killed, allowing the Cold family to continue terrorizing the universe. Despite being the weakest villain at the start of the series, Raditz coming to Earth is what allowed the Z series to be what it became.

Smug Snake: Acts smug and cocky when in control of a situation, but the minute he starts to lose, he becomes a Dirty Coward who begs for his life.

Starter Villain: For the Saiyan arc, and Z as a whole. He kicks Goku and Piccolo's butts upon his introduction and is one of the weakest characters at the start of Z.

Stereotype Flip: Unlike most Saiyans, who are honorable Blood Knights to the point where they would fight to the very end, Raditz is a Dirty Coward who begs for his life in order to get the upper hand.

Vegeta and Nappa didn't like him much, referring him as a weakling for dying.

And not mentioning how Bardock never thought of him once, even in his dying moments.

Averted, thankfully, in Dragon Ball Minus, where Bardock asks Gine where Raditz is when he arrived back on Vegeta on Freeza's orders, and tells Goku that he'd also tell Raditz not to look at the moon, showing at least some concern and regard for his firstborn.

Token Evil Teammate: To his family. Goku is the greatest hero in Universe 7. Gine was a gentle, caring individual. Bardock, while a hardened killer, was still a Noble Demon who had plenty of redeeming traits, and was one of the nicer Saiyans. Raditz is a psychopathic Blood Knight who won't hesitate to kill family members, and only displays a positive side once when he and Nappa are shocked by Vegeta's indifference toward their race being destroyed.

Unskilled, but Strong: Although he is a well trained Saiyan warrior, he relies heavily on his brute strength to get ahead. He also relies too much on his scouter, which causes him to underestimate Goku and Piccolo, and he neglected in training to overcome the Saiyans weakness, being grabbed by the tail, unlike Goku, Nappa, and Vegeta, which nearly caused Piccolo to kill him without needing to kill Goku.

Villains Want Mercy: First example in Z. He begs for mercy when Piccolo was going to kill him with his Special Beam Cannon. When he was shown mercy, he knocks Goku down and ruthlessly breaks his ribs while mocking him for falling for it. When he's about to be killed again, he pleads for his life again; thankfully, Goku doesn't fall for the same trick twice.

Virtue Is Weakness: After being granted mercy by Goku, Raditz crushes his ribs and openly mocks him for his compassion.

Warmup Boss/Wake-Up Call Boss: Manages to be both. He arrival on Earth shows the heroes what awaits them in the wider universe. Namely, the fighters on Earth are pitifully weak compared to even a Mook in Frieza's army. As elaborated above, this ends up having a huge snowball effect on the future of the universe.

Weaksauce Weakness: Grabbing his tail renders him completely powerless, something Goku takes advantage of since he shared the same weakness as a child. According to the Japanese text he can cut off his tail if necessary, which is why Goku didn't grab it again.

The Worf Effect: Basically his purpose. He shows up, no sells Piccolo's blasts, curb stomps Goku and Krillin with one hit each, and spends most of the rest of his screen time beating down Goku and Piccolo. Then he reveals he isn't even half as powerful as one of his partners, and several times weaker than the other.

You Remind Me of X: Freeza notices the similarities between him and Gohan and assumes, not knowing Goku exists, that Gohan must be Raditz's child.

Vegeta's partner and fellow surviving Saiyan. Practically dominates all of the Z Fighters in their fight till Goku arrives and easily beats him down. Vegeta then finishes him off thinking he was being weak; of course he was very very wrong on that front.

Alas, Poor Villain: Despite not having much of a personality outside of being a sadistic brute who murders all the Earth's defenders outside of Gohan and Krillin (and it wasn't from a lack of trying), it's hard not to feel sympathy for him after Vegeta kills him in cold blood. Especially since Nappa have been nothing but loyal to Vegeta since he was a child and never saw the betrayal coming.

Blood Knight: He really loves fighting and causing destruction. Then again, it's a requirement on any good Saiyan résumé.

Curb-Stomp Battle: He effortlessly thrashed the Z Fighters, causing the deaths of Chiaotzu, Tien, and Piccolo. He would have taken out Krillin and Gohan as well, had Goku not shown up.

The Dragon: To Vegeta, even though he was a full adult when Vegeta was still a child.

Dumb Muscle: He isn't that smart (choosing to solve every problem with violence) and follows Vegeta's every order.

Et Tu, Brute?: His last moments are spent begging Vegeta to help him after Goku thoroughly beat him, and he literally gives him a hand...only for Vegeta to toss him into the air. Nappa can only spend mere seconds of shock before Vegeta blows him up.

To Vegeta, a lot. In an anime only episode when he and Vegeta incidentally save an entire planet from tyranny, Nappa openly protests when Vegeta blows up said planet on a whim out of sheer sadism, saying "But those people called us heroes". His first reaction to hearing about the Dragon Balls is to suggest using them to wish back their fallen comrade, Raditz, which Vegeta rejects, saying that Raditz deserved to die if he got killed by weak Earthlings. Another, later anime-only sequence shows a flashback where Nappa talks about how bummed he is that the Saiyans got exterminated, while Vegeta says that they all deserved to die for being weak (note that his own parents were among those killed). Both he and Raditz are greatly bewildered when Nappa points out that Frieza killed their entire race and Vegeta already knew it and didn't care. Finally, Nappa is visibly shocked when Vegeta kills off one of the Saibamen after it lost to Tien. Vegeta says that the Saibaman didn't take his opponent seriously, to which Nappa replies "But still... it was alive!", and tells the next Saibaman to go all-out this time.

He never saw Vegeta killing him coming, at all, especially since he did it while he was asking for help.

Evil Cripple: For the extremely short amount of time between having his back broken by Goku and being killed by Vegeta.

Evil Is Bigger: He's huge and muscle bound, towering over the Z-Fighters and Vegeta.

Fantastic Racism: Much like Raditz, Nappa cares little for anyone who isn't a fellow Saiyan. He mostly hates Goku because he considers him a traitor to the Saiyan race. When he learns about the Dragon Balls, he wants to use them to bring back Raditz before Vegeta dismisses the idea.

For the Evulz: His very first act upon arriving on Earth is to blow up East City simply because he could.

Game-Breaking Injury: Goku puts him out of commission by breaking his back, after which Vegeta kills Nappa himself.

General Ripper/Large and in Charge: Prior to the destruction of Planet Vegeta, he was the commanding General of the Saiyan Army. Only in the English dub, though. Him being the commander was never mentioned in the Japanese version. Going by the Bardock special though, he did seem to be Prince Vegeta's personal aid though, which is still a notable and impressive position.

Hair-Trigger Temper: Seriously, he gets worked up and/or angry so easily that Vegeta looks perfectly rational in comparison.

Having a Blast: His Volcano Explosion technique, where he uses his ki to create massive explosions just by raising two fingers. It's quite possibly his Signature Move.

Hero Killer: Although he only directly kills Piccolo, his actions lead to the deaths of Chiaotzu and Tien Shinhan via failed Heroic Sacrifices.

Hot-Blooded: He's very passionate about fighting and killing, second only to Vegeta. This gets him in trouble with Goku, since he begins to lose his temper as Goku mercilessly beats him. He only calms down after Vegeta yells at him.

Killed Off for Real: Once he dies, he's pretty much out of the picture until the gate to Hell is opened in GT.

Laughably Evil: Though he is quite a menacing antagonist, it's hard not to laugh when he gets angry. Especially when he almost lost all his sanity when fighting Goku.

Leeroy Jenkins: Nappa is such an arrogant fighter that he believed that the Z Fighters were so weak that dodging their attacks was unnecessary. When Gohan assaulted him with a Masenko blast using all of his energy, Nappa chose to deflect the blast with this bare hands instead of simply moving out of the way. He tried to do the same to Krillin's Destructo Disk, and had not been for Vegeta's warning, Nappa would have paid the price for underestimating his foes.

Little Bit Beastly: Like all Saiyans, Nappa has a tail that he wears around his waist like a belt.

Made of Iron: Even Goku is surprised by how much resistance he has. Note that Goku is twice as strong as Nappa, and yet Nappa still kept getting up, despite beating after beating. Goku had to break his spine to put him down for good.

Mugging the Monster: Despite knowing his high power level, he mocks Goku about how he killed his friends and how they were all holding out hope that he would save them, but he came too late. Once Goku made sure Krillin and Gohan are safe, he proceeds to beats the daylights out of Nappa.

Muscles Are Meaningful/Muscles Are Meaningless: Is a bit of both. He's big, and easily wipes the floor with most of the Z-Fighters... and at the same time, Goku and Vegeta, both of whom are considerably smaller than Nappa, beat him effortlessly.

Noble Demon: Despite being a mass murdering planet destroyer, Nappa was extremely loyal to Vegeta, and just seemed to follow his orders. He was also the only one who stood up to Frieza, and was shocked when he heard that Vegeta didn't care about the Saiyans dying.

Older Than They Look: Official statements reveal that while his Saiyan genes give him the appearance of someone in their mid 30s, he is actually more than 50 years old. This makes him the oldest saiyan in canon. The only sign of his age is his baldness (he had hair when he was younger).

Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Upon escaping from Hell in the Super 17 arc of GT, Nappa, instead of heeding Vegeta's friendly advice to leave town, instead attempts to kill Vegeta out of revenge for killing him due to his broken back. Predictably, he fails.

The Southpaw: Most of his techniques are performed with his left hand, such as the blast he used to kill Piccolo, and he even deflects Gohan's Masenko with his left hand as well.

Space Pirate: He is a pirate along with all his fellow Saiyans. As he flies over the Earth during the three hour break, he muses about how much money they will get from selling Earth since it is so beautiful.

Theme Naming: Like all Saiyans, he's named after a vegetable (Napa cabbage).

Unskilled, but Strong: According to Goku; he admits that while Nappa is indeed powerful, Goku would be more impressed if Nappa actually knew how to use his strength. He did show some skill in fighting the other Z-Fighters, though, and to his credit he does focus himself and power up during his fight with Goku - it just didn't help much.

Villain Forgot to Level Grind: In GT. Having died and gone to hell, he probably got a power up after coming back, but he couldn't train to get stronger. And Vegeta was already orders of magnitude stronger than when he killed Nappa the first time around. Vegeta easily one-shots him with little effort.

Weaksauce Weakness: Viciously Averted. Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan believe that grabbing Nappa's tail will render him helpless, much like Raditz. When Piccolo grabs his tail, however, Nappa elbows him on the head, rendering Piccolo unconscious for several minutes. Vegeta mocks them for thinking that elites like Nappa and him would have such an obvious weakness. Funny thing, Krillin should have known this could have happened since Goku overcame this weakness when he was a child.

Nappa seems to be very knowledgeable about Saibamen, and knows how to grow them. He seemed to enjoy planting them, and even showed some slight compassion for them, as he is shocked when Vegeta kills one of their own after it failed to kill Tien. He is also shown coaching the Saibaman who killed Yamcha, and is later angry that its fight ended in a draw. He states that settling for a draw was pathetic. After Krillin and Piccolo kill the remaining Saibamen, Nappa begs Vegeta to let him kill the five remaining Z Fighters.

In Xenoverse, he mentions how Earth's soil is good for growing Saibamen.

He defeats all of the Z-fighters which had trained to fight him, killing half of them, including Piccolo. Then Goku comes and curbstomps him.

To show how much more powerful Vegeta is compared to Nappa, Vegeta turned him into dust with one powerful attack. Granted, Nappa was weakened and injured, but it stands out since Goku needed to power up to cripple Nappa, while Vegeta wasn't even winded from using so much energy.

Nappa: Strong little runt. You could say he went out with a bit of a bang.

You Have Failed Me: After Goku breaks Nappa's back, Vegeta, after grabbing Nappa's hand seemingly to help him up, hurls him into the air, tells Nappa that he won't be such a disappointment when he's dead, and then annihilates him with a powerful beam attack. Note that at this juncture, Vegeta could have just stuffed him back in his own ship and have Nappa put back into a medical tank when they got back. Vegeta was just that much of a bastard.

So Last Season: They may be mooks, but they're the equivalent to Raditz in power (though one of the games says that their power is dependent on the quality of the soil they're planted in). The Z Fighters are still able to destroy them with little effort, except for when Yamcha gets hit with one's Suicide Attack.

Suicide Attack: Saibaman Bomb is a kamikaze technique that turns the Saibaman into a living bomb that grabs hold of its opponent with an extremely tight grip and quickly self-destructs. Just ask Yamcha.

Two saiyans from 100 years ago (or illusions if you’re watching the Japanese version) that are utilized by Kami to train the Z-fighters for Nappa and Vegeta’s arrival. They are filler characters who don't appear in the original manga.

Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In the English dub the pendulum room sends the Z-fighters back 100 years to Age 662. The problem is Frieza didn't take over Planet Vegeta until Age 731. This means Shorty and Scarface shouldn't have battle armor or scouters. This is averted in the original Japanese version where they are stated to simply be illusions.

Frieza Saga

Frieza's Empire

Frieza's Empire

The second major army introduced in Dragon Ball. At their peak, they controlled closed to 70% of the known universe and was widely feared thanks to their boss, Frieza.

That all changed after they went to Planet Namek looking for the Dragon Balls to make Frieza immortal. All of Frieza's top generals, including the Ginyu Force, were wiped out by Vegeta with some help from Goku. Frieza himself was gravely wounded from his battle with the Super Saiyan and only survived because King Cold found him in the rubble of Namek. Once Frieza was rebuilt as a cyborg, he took his father and his forces to Earth to get revenge on Goku. There, they were killed by Future Trunks.

Asskicking Equals Authority: Frieza's army runs in this. The stronger you are, the higher your rank. Frieza wanted Goku to become his new Dragon after seeing how powerful he was. The one exception to this standard is Sorbet who takes over the Frieza Force after Frieza, King Cold, and all the top generals are dead.

Badass Army: They rule the universe and are the most feared force across Universe 7. Even Beerus knows of them and gets on the Z-Fighters for destroying them since their power would be helpful for the Tournament of Power.

Dirty Coward: Almost all of Frieza's men beg for their lives when outmatch or tries to run to Frieza for help.

The Dreaded: Their very presence struck fear across the universe and the Galactic Patrol couldn't do a thing against them. This all changed, however, after Frieza and Kind Cold were killed on Earth and Frieza's strongest generals were killed on Namek. That is when the planets began to rebel against The Remnants of Frieza's empire. By Resurrection 'F', the Frieza Force is on its last legs and are so desperate to regain their 'dreaded' status that they revived their Bad Boss Frieza since his name is still widely feared across the universe.

The Empire: Frieza's empire spread across the entire universe to the point that they were the unofficial government of Universe 7.

Enemy Civil War: The Frieza Force vs. Vegeta to gain control of the Namekian Dragon Balls was the major conflict for most of the Namek Saga.

Equal-Opportunity Evil: Frieza isn't picky about who gets into the Frieza Force. Even non-fighters like doctors and tech support are welcomed and he didn't mind the Saiyans being part of his force despite how much he feared them. All Frieza wants is for men to be good at their job and loyal to him.

Evil Army: They're the second evil army introduced in the series. Unlike the Red Ribbon Army, they're not only highly competent, they have some of the strongest fighters in the universe. At their peak, they controlled 70% of the known universe.

Evil vs. Evil: During the Namek Saga, the Frieza Force got into an Enemy Civil War with Vegeta who wanted the Dragon Balls for himself. Since Vegeta was still very much a villain at this point, the Z-Fighters did everything they could to prevent Frieza and Vegeta from getting their wish.

Fantastic Racism: Despite being Equal-Opportunity Evil, the vast majority of the Frieza Force looked down on the Saiyans, seeing them as brainless monkeys. Vegeta in particular stands out since he was an Elite Mook who was being groomed to be Frieza's next Dragon, yet he was treated just as poorly as the other Saiyans.

How the Mighty Have Fallen: By the time of Resurrection 'F', Frieza's army is a shadow of its former self and is barely being kept together by Sorbet.

Mooks: Naturally, however, even the weakest soldier on the Frieza Force is powerful by Earth's standards. For reference, Raditz is consider a mook and he trash the Earth's strongest warriors with ease. They even mock the Namekians when they thought they only had a power level of one-thousand.

Mook Horror Show: They're subjective to this twice by Vegeta. First when he escaped the healing tank and again when attacked Frieza's ship, looking for the Dragon Balls.

Punch-Clock Villain: While the Frieza Force has its share of Psychos For Hire, most are not particularly evil. A lot of the Frieza Force members joined under the threat of death, while others treat their evil deeds as a normal job.

The Remnant: What they're reduced to after Frieza and King Cold are killed by Earth. By Resurrection 'F', they can barely be called an army and they're eventually wiped out completely after Frieza tries to get revenge on Goku, yet again.

Sparing the Aces: Frieza's Empire is build on this trope. Most of Frieza's strongest men are from planets he's conquered and he spares the strongest if they chose to work under him. On Namek, he laments about killing Nail after seeing his battle power and offers Goku a position as his Dragon after witnessing his strength. King Cold even offers to make Future Trunks his 'new son' after he effortlessly killed Frieza.

Take Over the World: More like take over the universe and they largely succeeded until Frieza's defeat on Namek.

You Have Failed Me: Failure is not an option in this army. You either fall in battle or killed personally by Frieza or one of his Dragons.

Always Chaotic Evil: Zigzagged. In the main Dragon Ball story, all members of Frieza's race that we have seen, including Universe 6's Frost, have been evil, dirty bastards. Vegeta even makes it a point in Super to say that no version of Frieza can ever be good. In other material, however, like Heroes and Xenoverse, there are good members of Frieza's clan who tries to clean up the image that Frieza has given them. Toriyama himself also suggests that Frieza and his father are unnaturally cruel for their species because they're Mutants.

Bishonen Line: From what we have seen, all of Frieza's race, even ones from another universe, follow a similar transformation sequence as him, with the exception being Kind Cold, maybe:

Form 1 is most restrained form, being a small humanoid alien with a prehensile lizard-like tail, lizard-like feet, a helmet-like growth of bone on his skull, and two stubby horns jutting from his temples.

Form 2 unlocks a significant proportion of their power. This form is essentially a bigger, buffer and scarier version of Form 1, with satanic horns that it can use as weapons being the major physical difference apart from size and build.

Form 3 is the barely restrained form and the most monstrous-looking form. It's even bigger and more top-heavy than Form 2, with a distorted, muzzle-like face and an extended, spiky skull vaguely like a Xenomorph.

Form 4 is their true form. In this state, they shrinks back down to the same diminutive stature and waifish build as Form 1, but he no longer has the same "helmet growth" on his head, instead having a smooth, bulbous head, rather like a Gray, lacks any semblance of armor, and has no horns.

Bizarre Alien Biology: Their skin in their first, second, and third forms looks like armor, yet it's actually a part of their body. They can also survive the vacuum of space, are naturally so powerful they can casually destroy planets, can shapeshift to limit their power so as not to destroy their surroundings, and are durable enough to survive the destruction of an entire planet while grievously wounded, and survive in space without any kind of sustenance for at least a year. They may also reproduced asexually like the Namekians.

The Dreaded: Frieza and his family are feared across the universe. Even in material outside the main story, anyone of Frieza's race is met with terror and distrust.

Golden Super Mode: Golden Frieza. Within the video games, this form is accessible to anyone in Frieza's race.

Long-Lived: Perhaps. Frieza was at least in his 70s when he was killed and King Cold was even older than him, yet neither of them looked that old.

Mutant: The reason why King Cold and Frieza are so powerful for their race is because they're mutants with Frieza being a prodigy even among them. Their mutation also made their far more cruel.

Mysterious Past: Almost nothing is known about this species, not even their names. Most information comes from Toriyama, decades after the original run of the manga, and supplemental information from the videos like Xenoverse.

Nigh-Invulnerability: What they're most known for. Even without being able to heal, they have extreme survivability. They can live even when most of their bodies have been destroyed like Frieza on Namek and Cooler who was reduced to just a head after his encounter with Goku. In Resurrection 'F', Frieza is revived in dozen of pieces and still lived. They can also survived in a vacuum, so they can destroy a planet, wiping out all of their enemies, before happily flying through space.

Cell: "I have all the data I need on the 'Frost Demons', I have no interest in you. "

Non-Humans Lack Attributes: Their true forms lack the armor like design of their other forms, so they appeared to be naked. They don't, however, have anything that you would expect to see from a naked human.

Power Limiter: Unlike the other races who transformed in the series, Frieza's clan use their transformations to suppress their power. Their 'final form' is their true from. The only exceptions are Golden Frieza, an ultimate form Frieza modeled after the Super Saiyan, and Cooler's fifth form that he created to surpass Frieza.

Prehensile Tail: They have long, lizard likes tails. It have many uses like grabbed objects and even strangling people.

The Sociopath: This seems to be the curse of anyone who is born a mutant of this species if we look at King Cold and Frieza. They gain great power, but lack any 'humanity'.

Super Mode: Within the canon of Dragon Ball, there is Frieza's golden form. As of this writing, it is unknown if others within his race can gain this transformation outside of the video games. If one counts the Non Serial Movies, there is Cooler's fifth form. While powerful, it's nowhere near as strong as the golden form.

Superpower Lottery: Anyone who is born a mutant in this race is a winner. Not only do they have the racial traits that makes them nearly impossible to kill outside of vaporization, but they gain so much power that Frieza was born the strongest mortal in Universe 7 without putting in a day of work. When he did train, he reaches the level of godhood.

Truly Single Parent: Maybe. In an interview, Toriyama made it appear that King Cold gave birth to Frieza alone and we have yet to see a female of Frieza's race.

Willfully Weak: Most will stay in their first, weakest form, instead of using their true forms. The reasons vary from saving energy, so the enemy will underestimate them, or because they can't properly control their full power and have to limit themselves for their own sanity.

Zarbon is one of Frieza's Co-Dragons who are the highest ranking Generals in Frieza's military by chain of command. Both Zarbon and Dodoria serve to show how powerful Saiyans become after recovering from a near death experience. Zarbon beats Vegeta to near death in his monstrous second form, only for Vegeta to later recover and kill Zarbon instead.

Affably Evil: He isn't as sadistic as Frieza and his men, including Dodoria, and just appears to be doing his job. He's actually quite polite as long as he doesn't transform. Then, he turns into a brute.

Agent Peacock: He is very vain to the point that he won't use his more powerful transformation for the sake of vanity.

Alas, Poor Villain: By the end, you have to feel kinda sorry for Zarbon. First, Frieza got on him for not making sure Vegeta was dead because he refused to search for the body because it fell into a lake. Then, one of Frieza's henchmen screwed up and killed a Namekian who knew where Vegeta hid a Dragon Ball. After said henchman is killed, Frieza tells Zarbon he's next if Vegeta is dead (the exact opposite of what he was chewed out for earlier). When Zarbon finds Vegeta still alive he brings him back to be healed just enough to be interrogated. Once again, one of the henchmen screwed up and allowed Vegeta to trick them into fully healing him. Vegeta breaks free, stronger than ever, and steals Frieza's Dragon Balls and Zarbon is blamed for the entire incident. He's given one hour to find Vegeta and the Dragon Balls or he will be killed. He is eventually killed by Vegeta because Frieza's men mess up and he took the fall.

Alien Blood: Zarbon's blood is dark blue. Not surprising given his skin color.

All There in the Manual: Some videogames and manuals confirm he was the prince of a planet Frieza conquered many years ago, making him similar to Vegeta in this regard.

Ambiguously Gay/Camp Straight: Very flamboyant (only in the english dub, though), talks in a soft voice, and always pines about his looks. Doesn't help that he's a pretty boy, despite being a blue-skinned alien.

Arch-Enemy: Zarbon and Vegeta had a heated relationship. They both took personal pleasure in beating each other. Vegeta eventually won out thanks to the Saiyans' ability to grow stronger from near-death.

The Chess Master: In Beautiful Treachery", he shows his cunning personality to manipulate both Frieza and Cooler to fight and distract them, while he obtains his wish of eternal beauty from Porunga. However, this bites him in the ass when he remains trapped on Namek with no way of escaping, dying in the process.

The Dragon: Although Zarbon and Dodoria appear to be equal in rank officially making them Co-Dragons, Zarbon takes a more commanding position and directly orders Frieza's men. He often gives advice and warnings to Frieza, and takes even the smallest threat seriously even if Frieza isn't listening to him. He's also the only one who takes the threat of Vegeta seriously after he showed a battle power higher than his and chose to wipe Vegeta out when he attacked him. In some ways, he's more competent than Frieza, with his biggest weakness being his vanity.

Even Evil Has Standards: When Frieza intended to destroy Planet Vegeta despite scores of his own soldiers still out there battling Bardock, Dodoria had a shocked expression and Zarbon pleaded for their sake only to be silently rebuked; neither displayed any joy in watching the planet's destruction unlike their maniacal overlord.

The Fighting Narcissist: He'd rather fight in his weaker first form than use his ugly second form, and initially refused to search a lake for Vegeta's body because it would mess up his hair. He is also obsessed with beauty, and hates anything he deems ugly, including his second form, and in some what if stories, Guldo.

Hair Color Dissonance: Has green hair, darker than his green skin. Since he is an alien, it may be natural for his species.

Juggle Fu: With a Dragon Ball. While fighting the Namekians, he tosses on of the Dragon Balls into the air and catches it once he finished.

Just Following Orders: He claims this after Vegeta rammed a fist through his gut. In the English dub version, this sounds plausible, because Frieza came up with the idea of destroying the Saiyans on his own. In the original Japanese version, this is nonsense, because Zarbon and Dodoria were the ones who planted the idea that the Saiyans were a threat that needed to be destroyed in Frieza's head in the first place. Either way, Vegeta is not impressed and simply kills Zarbon by shooting through him.

Kick the Son of a Bitch: His first fight with Vegeta is a perfect example, since not long before said fight, Vegeta had slaughtered an entire village of innocent Namekians, children included, for their Dragon Balls, all while laughing and acting smug. When Zarbon transformed and handed Vegeta his ass, most felt he more than deserved it, especially since Zarbon is the most human-looking of Frieza's elites.

No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In their first fight, he deals one to Vegeta after transforming that left him on the brink of death.

Older Than They Look: He may look like a handsome young bishonen (at least in his first form), but seeing as he hadn't aged a bit in the twenty-five years between the destruction of Planet Vegeta and the conflict on Planet Namek, he's clearly a lot older than he looks.

One-Winged Angel: His second form. He maybe ugly, but he goes from being overpowered by Vegeta to beating him to the brink of death. Vegeta only lives because of luck and Frieza wanting him alive.

Punch-Clock Villain: In contrast to Dodoria, who seems to be a ruthless Psycho for Hire, Zarbon is a little more sympathetic. In fact, he just seems to follow the orders of Frieza because he says that will kill him if he does not. He is also more professional with his kills, dispatching opponents quickly instead of dragging things out. On the other hand, according to Bardock: The Father of Goku, he was the one that gave Frieza the suggestion to commit genocide on the Saiyans, in response to their potential threat. He also expressed quite racist sentiments to Vegeta, Nappa, and Raditz in a Filler episode. Although, the former has more to do with protecting Frieza from a Saiyan uprising then him hating the Saiyans themselves. Zarbon's advice also seems to suggest killing the strongest like Bardock and his team so they wouldn't team up with Vegeta than an outright genocide. The racist comments seemed more to piss off Vegeta, who he never liked.

Right-Hand Hottie: He is Frieza most handsome soldier, and also his right hand. Until he transforms into a hideous monster.

Sissy Villain: He's long-haired, has a somewhat feminine appearance, and hates transforming because of the form's ugliness.

Theme Naming: His name originates from the Japanese name for the pomelo fruit, and his skin is almost exactly the same color as a pomelo.

Those Two Bad Guys: With Dodoria. They are pretty much Frieza's right-hand men considering the Ginyu Force are hired mercenaries.

Underestimating Badassery: He makes the mistake of underestimating Vegeta, and it eventually cost him his life. This was initially rectified by transforming and defeating him, but failed to take into account Vegeta's Zenkai boost during the rematch).

The Villain Makes the Plot: According to the Bardock TV special, Zarbon was the one who implanted the idea that the Saiyans were a threat that needed to be wiped out in Frieza's head to begin with. This also rings true in his What If? mode in Budokai Tenkaichi 2.

Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Zarbon assumes he can defeat Vegeta with ease in their rematch just because he did it before, unaware that Vegeta has gotten a lot stronger thanks to his Saiyan genes.

Villains Want Mercy: After Zarbon gets a hole punched through his gut by Vegeta, he begs for his life, pulling the Just Following Orders card and even suggesting that they join forces to take down Frieza; Vegeta just blasts him to kingdom come, demanding to know why he should show Zarbon mercy considering the fact that Zarbon had done nothing but insult him and push him around for years.

Wake-Up Call Boss: To Vegeta. After he easily disposed of Cui and Dodoria, Vegeta thought he would have an easy time with Zarbon. That is before Zarbon transformed and beat the crud out of Vegeta. Even during their rematch, Vegeta still had a tough time with him.

We Have Become Complacent: Just like with Cui and Dodoria, Vegeta mocks Zarbon for taking it easy and relying on Frieza's power to protect them, while he fought on the front lines getting stronger. While very true with Cui and Dodoria, who screams Frieza's name as they died, Zarbon initially was able to beat Vegeta thanks to his transformation. Even after Vegeta became stronger, Zarbon still puts up a decent fight before dying.

Worf Effect: Done twice for Zarbon. In his first fight with Vegeta, he was being beaten by the Saiyan Prince, who easily took care of Dodoria who he was about equal with. Then he transforms and curb stomps Vegeta like a noob. After Vegeta recovers, they fight again and he's overwhelm thanks to the Saiyans' ability to grow stronger from near-death.

Dodoria is one of Frieza's Co-Dragons who are the highest ranking Generals in Frieza's military by chain of command. Both Zarbon and Dodoria serve to show how powerful Saiyans become after recovering from a near death experience. Dodoria, who was stronger than Vegeta before his defeat on Earth is killed with ease but reveals the truth behind the destruction of the Saiyan home world.

The Brute: Although he is technically a Co-Dragon next to Zarbon, he fills the brute role by being closer to Dumb Muscle and having no a real personality outside of being a sadistic bully. Xenoverse 2 gives him some much needed personality by making him an NPC and mentor.

Dirty Coward: He pleads for his life and tells Vegeta about how Frieza destroyed the Saiyans' home planet in exchange for his life. Vegeta, understandably, had no intention of keeping his word. In his final moments, Dodoria screams for Frieza to help him.

He is extremely proud of his strength and is one of Frieza's strongest soldiers, but he tends not to think things through: like not realizing that the old Namekian was aiming for his scouter until it was too late, chasing Krillin and Gohan without taking note where he was going, and in the Bardock TV special, failing to spot check to make sure Bardock was dead.

In Xenoverse 2; it's part of the reason why he and Zarbon don't get along, the other being that Dodoria's not fond of Zarbon's Sissy Villain nature. Of course, as the trope goes: what he lacks in brains, he makes up for with sadistic brute strength.

Elite Mooks: Dodoria's Elite in the special Bardock: The Father of Goku.

Even Evil Has Standards: Couldn't believe that Frieza would destroy Planet Vegeta with their own men still in range, but was too afraid to speak out.

Fat Bastard: He coldly murders the Nameks including a child. He would have killed Dende if Gohan hadn't saved him.

Villains Want Mercy: Dodoria pleads for his life, even telling him the truth about Planet Vegeta's destruction in the hopes that Vegeta would spare him (Vegeta had believed that the planet was destroyed by a meteorite). Vegeta kills him anyway.

Warm-Up Boss: Despite being one of Frieza's Dragons he is easily dealt with by Vegeta. They didn't even really fight before Dodoria begs for mercy.

We Have Become Complacent: Just like with Cui, Vegeta mocks Dodoria for taking it easy and relying on Frieza's power to protect them, while he fought on the front lines getting stronger. Dodoria doesn't even try to fight Vegeta. Instead, he pleads for his life and spills the beans on Frieza destroying Planet Vegeta. He then screams Frieza's name as he is killed.

Would Hurt a Child: In the anime only, Dodoria ended up murdering Dende's brother Cargo for what was essentially no reason at all. He also would had killed Dende if Gohan and Krillin hadn't stepped in. He also had no problem chasing after Gohan after he and Krillin stopped him from killing Dende.

Worf Effect: Dodoria, one of Frieza's dragons who easily killed three powerful Namekians, is done in with no fanfare by Vegeta. Dodoria was so outmatched that he didn't bother to fight. Instead, he tried to plea bargain for his life.

An elite soldier in Frieza’s army who has a 'rivalry' with Vegeta. He is easily killed by Vegeta upon his arrival on Namek, showing how much more powerful Vegeta has become since his battle on Earth.

Asshole Victim: The first of Vegeta's victims when he arrives on Namek and arguably the least likable. The anime shows that he was in charge of conquering at least one planet, which makes Vegeta killing him all the more satisfying.

Combat Pragmatist: Once he realized he was screwed (see The Worf Effect), Cui distracts Vegeta by looking over his shoulder and gasping, "Lord Frieza?!”. Vegeta, seemingly, falls for it and Cui mercilessly blasts his foe. Unfortunately for Cui, Vegeta avoided every shot.

Dirty Coward: After being overpowered by Vegeta, Cui gave him the We Can Rule Together line. When that didn’t seem to work he opted for a sneak attack instead, all that did was make Vegeta more angry.

Elite Mook: He considered himself Vegeta's rivalry and he is indeed strong since he has a power level of 18,000, exactly how powerful Vegeta was on Earth. Too bad for him that he faced Vegeta after his great battle on Earth and got a major power boost.

We Have Become Complacent: Vegeta mocks Cui for taking it easy while he fought in many fierce battles, including the fight on Earth. Instead of improving himself, he chose to depend on Frieza for protection.

The Worf Effect: Cui and Vegeta's power levels were even before the latter went to Earth. Due to Vegeta recovering from near death after his battle with the Z-Fighters, his Saiyan heritage allowed power level to skyrocket past Cui’s even after he himself trained. Cui had no chance.

Mercenaries summoned by Frieza after his Elite Mooks are killed. Their strength is second only to his. Basically just obstacles to get in the Z Fighters' way while everyone was looking for the Dragon Balls on Namek. With Ginyu's unique power, he switched bodies with Goku, horribly injuring his own before the switch. When Ginyu is almost beaten by Vegeta, he attempts to take Vegeta's body. Goku first blocks Ginyu's path and regains his body and then throws a frog in Ginyu's path when he tries again. Ginyu is stuck as a frog, who couldn't talk or switch bodies. The rest of the Ginyu Force was killed by Vegeta, but only after most of them were distracted or already defeated and knocked unconscious by Goku.

Ambiguous Situation: There is some question as to whether Ginyu's purple, horned body at the start of the series is his original body, or whether it is just the latest in a long line of stolen, more-powerful forms.

Adaptational Badass: In the manga, due to not being used to Goku's body, Ginyu was being overwhelmed while fighting Krillin and Gohan. In the anime, he manages to get adjusted to his new body, and quickly turns the tables on them when he finds out how to draw out Goku's power.

Adorkable: Rare evil example. They often play rock-paper-scissors to decide who will fight, bet candy, and strike weird posers that they think is cool. They come off as a joke, until the fighting starts.

Affably Evil: They really seem like a fun, likeable bunch of guys... If not for the fact that they're the elite guard of the galaxy's most brutal dictator and all…

Recoome beats Vegeta, Krillin, and Gohan into the ground with no real damage done to him. He is easily the strongest opponent seen fighting in the series so far. He is takien down in a single hit by Goku, who wasn't even particularly trying.

The entire Ginyu Force is done in just as anti-climaically. Burter and Recoome are killed while they're unconscious. Jeice puts almost no fight against Vegeta and is easily killed, and Ginyu body switches until he ends up in a frog's body.

Despite Ginyu's grand return in Super and possessing a body that is far stronger than his old one, he is done in with one energy blast from Vegeta.

Asskicking Equals Authority: Captain Ginyu is more than twice as strong than any of his men and is able to hide his battle power, surprising Goku. However, he has a major freakout when he realizes that Goku is many times stronger than him and resorts to stealing bodies when outmatched.

Awesome, but Impractical: Guldo can stop time, but only for as long as he can hold his breath. Furthermore, he can't hold his breath for very long, and it in the manga it takes too much of his Ki to attack while doing so, while in the anime when he uses it repeatedly, he burns himself out to the point where he can't even fire basic Ki Blasts. Their poses and attack setups, Lampshaded by Goku that they take too long and leave them wide open.

Back for the Dead: Predictably, when Ginyu finally got to return to a humanoid body, Vegeta slew him ruthlessly in the very same manner he murdered the other members of the Ginyu Force, finally completing the set. However, the body that got destroyed was not Ginyu's- it was Tagoma's, who got tricked into triggering the body swap technique. Unfortunately, that meant for poor Tagoma that his original body was now destroyed with no way to get back from being stuck as a frog, while Ginyu's original body lives on, but is now and still inhabited by the mind of said frog.

Badass Crew: They're stronger than the Saiyans. In the absence of full moons anyway.

Bash Brothers: Jeice and Burter are always seen taking on opponents together, and they tend to combine their attacks quite frequently.

Beware the Silly Ones: Vegeta and Frieza both know this well enough from the start, but fans might not be convinced until they see just what Ginyu's crew is capable of when they get down to business.

Beware the Superman: Like their masters, the Ginyu Force are abnormally-strong mutants who use their powers to terrorize the galaxy.

The Bus Came Back: Ginyu makes his return in Dragon Ball Super. He hijacks Tagoma's body.

Captain Superhero: Capt. Ginyu is a villainous version of this. His group of mercs is not exactly a military organization, as none of his subordinates go by any other rank, so it seems like Captain is just a title given to him by his guys, or being the ham that he is, he may have called himself that.

Cruel Mercy: Captain Ginyu gets this from Vegeta and Goku after accidentally body-swapping into a frog. Depending on the version, this is either because Vegeta didn't want to get frog guts all over his boots, or because he figured being trapped in a frog's body was punishment enough.

Dance Battler: Recoome. He's quite graceful given his size, due to practicing ballet as a child. He's the second tallest next to Burter.

Death by Adaptation: While Ginyu may still be alive by the end of the manga, he is unceremoniously killed by Vegeta in Super.

Deliberate Injury Gambit: Ginyu. He injured his own body to disable Goku once he performed his body switching technique. His fight with Vegeta seems to imply this is one of his favorite tricks.

Determinator: Ginyu. Not even being turned into a frog sets him back for long. In Super, he waited almost twenty years to find a suitable body to hijack so he can return to Frieza's service.

Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Recoome literally gives Goku the finger when he hears that his power level is only five thousand. Granted, Recoome truly didn't know he was giving the bird to someone almost three times stronger than him, but it still counts.

Dirty Coward: Instead of helping his fallen friends when Goku gave him the chance to leave, Jeice chose to cut and run, abandoning his comrades. His actions got Recoome and Burter killed by Vegeta. And when Vegeta was about to kill him, he begs for his life.

The Dreaded: Vegeta actually fears them to the extent that when he learned that Frieza had called them to Namek, he quickly formed an Enemy Mine with Gohan and Krillin.

Edible Theme Naming: Not very obvious unless you're savvy with their names' literal translation into milk products. Ginyu translates to Milk. The others are corruptions of English words. Roughly Cheese (Jeice) Butter (Burter) Recoome (Cream - add a syllable between c and r, then switch them) and Yogurt (Guldo, based on the 'gurt' part in Japanese Ranguage.)

Establishing Character Moment: The Ginyu Force's grand entrance, especially in Kai. It tells you everything you need to know about the group in under a minute.

Fate Worse Than Death: Played with in regards to Captain Ginyu. For a warrior and the strongest soldier in Freeza's army, if he had to choose between death and being stuck in the body of a small Namekian Frog rendering him essentially helpless, its likely he'd rather be dead; unfortunately for him, both Goku and Vegeta agree that being trapped as a frog was a fitting punishment. However, various side materials indicate that, since he was a living thing on Namek right before it blew up, he did get taken to Earth with most of the cast, and he eventually makes himself king of the frogs in Dr. Briefs' pond, so he seems to have made the most of his situation. Nonetheless, in Super, Ginyu makes it clear that he hated being trapped in the body of a frog, outright comparing it to Frieza's time in Hell.

Final Boss: Only in the original Saban dub of DBZ. This 1996-1998 production, known by some as the Ocean dub, ended right after Goku arrived on Namek and defeated Recoome. Many children of the late-90s will be able to recall the crushing disappointment of seeing Raditz's space pod instead of Goku's continued battle with Jeice and Burter.

Flipping the Bird: Recoome gives Goku one after finding out his power level is (supposedly) only 5,000.

The purpose of Ginyu's body swap technique. However, as he doesn't know Goku's power up moves, Ginyu can't use his new body effectively, and gets stomped into the dirt by Vegeta and Gohan.

He fares better in Super once he takes over Tagoma's body. He's even able to unleash all of Tagoma's latent power because he lack's the arrogance and inexperience to hold him back. He is still killed with no fanfare by Vegeta.

I Know Madden Kombat: As mentioned above, one of Jeice's moves was developed through Little League Baseball.

Incoming Ham: The first three minutes they're onscreen sounding off to Frieza tells you virtually everything you need to know about them.

Informed Ability: Burter constantly boasts about being the fastest in the universe, to the extent that he's in disbelief that Goku is able to outrun him. Ginyu and Frieza are clearly faster than him. Lampshaded by Goku in their fight:

Burter: "What?! How did you sneak up on me?! I'm supposed to be the fastest in the universe!"

Goku: "I guess that makes you the second-fastest, then."

It Is Pronounced Tro Pay: Ginyu's name is spoken with a soft G and roughly as "Jineou" in some older European dubs, making it sound French.

Japanese Pronouns: All five of them use Ore, although Ginyu takes it a step further with the incredibly arrogant Ore-sama.

Large Ham: All of them, with Captain Ginyu and Recoome taking the cake.

Lightning Bruiser: Burter is the biggest member of the group, but his primary trait is his immense speed. Recoome and Ginyu also count, given that they're not much smaller but can still keep up with opponents as quick as Goku and Vegeta.

Recoome in particular took quite a lot of damage from Vegeta, Gohan and Krillin, but simply would not go down.

In the Other World Tournament Filler Arc between the Cell Saga and Buu Saga, the Ginyu Force was thrown right into Needle Mountain and ended up impaled, and they were already dead by that time. It's a bit hard to believe they would survive that, especially taking into account that killing them when already dead would result in them being Deader Than Dead, but they keep making return appearances in Hell all the same.

Metal Scream: Jeice tends to scream like this in the Ocean dub when he's posing.

Mutant: All the Ginyu Force members are mutants of their respective species, which is why they are so strong with two of them having Story Breaker Powers.

Noble Demon: Ginyu, surprisingly, has a slight honorable side. During the fight with Goku, he gets furious at Jeice for helping him out, threatening to kill him if he does it again. That is, until he learned Goku is much stronger than him then he loses all of his noble qualities and use the game-breaker body switch technique.

No Name Given: In the French dub (and thus its many European derivatives), only Ginyu and Jeice are named, though even they go nameless for most of their appearance, and as a group, they are never referred to as the Ginyu Force either.

One-Man Army: Recoome more than held his own against Vegeta, Krillin, and Gohan. In fact, all three of them had already given up on defeating him, and they didn't believe Goku could defeat him when he arrived.

Outside-Context Problem: Ginyu is quite the standard powerful leader. However, his body switch technique is so out there and out of place that none of the characters know what to make of it. Even when Ginyu explains that he stole Goku's body, Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta are still left baffled. By the time Ginyu ended up in a frog's body, the heroes are still not sure what happened.

Psychic Powers: Guldo. Power-wise, he was quite weak and is almost defeated by Krillin and Gohan. What kept him alive was his Time Freeze Technique. He also almost killed Gohan and Krillin with his binding power.

Psychopathic Manchild: All five are this; they're Frieza's ruthless Quirky Miniboss Squad who also love to make very hammy Sentai poses to introduce themselves to friend and foe alike and decide things via rock/paper/scissors.

Quirky Miniboss Squad: They provide the image for the trope. Ginyu, the leader and the most powerful guy on the team. Jeice and Burter are a Those Two Bad Guys tag team duo. Recoome is the dumb Brute, and Guldo is the little guy who earns a place among the big boys thanks to his mind powers.

The Red Baron: Burter calls himself "the Blue Hurricane" and Jeice calls himself "the Red Magma". It's unknown if the rest of them have nicknames.

Running Gag: Frog Ginyu has shown up each season of Dragon Ball Z. Becomes Chekhov's Gag when he returns in Super as a frog and takes over Tagoma's body, once again becoming a threat.

Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: After Goku takes out Burter, Jeice chose to cut and run and get the captain. And when Goku shows off his battle power, causing Ginyu to have a meltdown, Jeice wants to run again and get Frieza.

Ginyu's body switch technique. As far as we know, it's unblockable and paralyzes the person in place and to make matters worse he can do it even if he's seriously injured. The only thing that can stop it is another living creature getting between the beam and its intended victim. If Ginyu wanted to, he could probably body jack Frieza.

Guldo's Time Freeze. As long as he holds his breath, he stops time for the entire universe. With time stop, he can move around freely to escape fatal attacks or attack his opponents while they're defenseless. He's the only being in the series able to manipulate time to this level except for Whis. This power is balanced by Guldo being completely out of shape and not being particularly strong. If a someone who is truly powerful had this ability, they would be close to unbeatable. If that wasn't enough, he has another broken technique, Mind Freeze. When he uses this, he paralyzes any opponent even if they're many times stronger than him. He uses this to nearly kill Gohan and Krillin, and would have succeeded if Vegeta didn't save them. The only known drawback is that this technique uses a lot of energy and Guldo only uses it when he's desperate (on top of Guldo being simply too weak to give a killing blow unless there is a tree around).

Super Powered Mooks: At one point in the story, the Ginyu Force was the most powerful fighting force in the known universe. They debuted shortly before the Lensman Arms Race of power levels really took off, so this was never really apparent.

Super Speed: Burter brags about being the fastest in the universe. To wit, he catches a Dragon Ball that Vegeta tries to throw away. He did it so quickly that he was back before Vegeta, Krillin, and Gohan even turned around. But then he meets Goku.

Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Recoome and Guldo serve a near identical role to Nappa and the Saibaman during the Saiyan Saga. Like the Saibaman, Guldo is the small, weak warm-up villain who gets disposed of by the Z-fighters with little trouble. Like Nappa, Recoome is a colossal sized brute who the Z-fighters struggle against and suffer immense defeat, before Goku promptly shows up and one-shots said brute.

Those Two Bad Guys: Jeice and Burter, although Jeice also fills this role with Ginyu for a while after Burter's untimely death.

Time Master: Guldo with his Time Freeze ability, which stops time for the entire universe as long as he holds his breath.

They have shown disregard in some cases. When Guldo is killed, they only make a big deal about their fighting pose not looking good with just three or four people. Sure, Burter and Jeice disregarding Recoome's defeat to Goku may have been slightly justified, but Jeice alone crosses borderline Moral Event Horizon when he abandons both Burter and Recoome to the enemy, even after Goku told him to take his fellow members off of Namek (both are killed by Vegeta moments afterwards). When Jeice attempts to help Ginyu during the fight with Goku, Ginyu gets pissed and (in the anime only) fires a blast that would've most certainly killed Jeice if he hadn't dodged, threatening to kill him if he interferes again.

That being said, in both of the Supersonic Warriors games, whenever Ginyu gets to make a wish on the Dragon Balls in a What If? saga, he unhesitatingly brings his teammates Back from the Dead.

Jeice goes through this after Goku defeats Recoome and Burter easily, and again right before Vegeta kills him.

Ginyu goes through a notable one when Goku powers up to the extent that he believed he just might be a Super Saiyan.

Villainous Friendship: At first, Ginyu and Frieza seems to have this. In Super Frieza is genuinely happy to have Ginyu back, saying that he thought he died on Namek. Then this becomes subverted after Vegeta kills Ginyu. Instead of being saddened by the death of his most loyal servant, Frieza laughs.

Warm-Up Boss: Guldo acts as this to the rest of the Ginyu Force, being the weakest of the bunch and easily killed by Vegeta.

Weak, but Skilled: Guldo is considerably weaker than his fellow Ginyu Force members, but his psychic powers and the ability to temporarily stop time were considered formidable enough to earn him a spot on the team. Xenoverse in particular raises the intriguing possibility that Ginyu keeps him around specifically to ensure no one dodges his body-swap technique.

What Happened to the Mouse?: In the manga, Ginyu is never seen again after becoming a frog. The anime has him briefly possess Bulma and appear on Earth before being destroyed by Buu, though DB Super has a cameo from a familiar looking frog during the Resurrection of F arc. GT on the other hand shows him escaping from Hell and being promptly sent back after he was presumably defeated offscreen.

Worthy Opponent: Ginyu considered Goku this to him, believing he was a rare opponent that he could get a good challenge from. Turns out Goku was a lot stronger than he imagined…

Vegeta by himself killed all of Frieza's elite soldiers before the Ginyu Force arrives. When they do confront Vegeta, Recoome alone effortlessly handles him. Once done with Vegeta, he stomps Krillin and Gohan who got power boosts from the Grand Elder. Then, Goku arrives and beats all the Ginyu members like they're chumps. Keep in mind, the last time we saw Goku, he was weaker than Vegeta.

Vegeta gets his revenge on Jeice, stalking and killing him faster than his final battle with Zarbon. Jeice was just as strong as Recoome.

Ginyu in Super gets hit with this twice. He is able to easily fight off the Z-Figthers in his new body, but is taken down in two hits by Gohan once he goes Super Saiyan. When Goku and Vegeta finally makes it to Earth, Vegeta kills Ginyu with a single energy blast in his base form.

Would Hurt a Child: Recoome has no problem beating up Gohan, which is why he gets a well-deserved beatdown from Goku and Vegeta.

In the lyrics to their full theme song, they boast their abilities include shutting up whiny kids.

Raiti and Zaacro

Raiti and Zaacro

Raiti voiced by: Isamu Tanonaka (Japanese)

Raiti voiced by: Paul Dobson (Ocean dub)

Raiti voiced by: R. Bruce Elliot (Funimation dub)

Zaacro voiced by: Yasuo Tanaka (Japanese)

Zaacro voiced by: Alvin Sanders (Ocean dub)

Zaacro voiced by: Bob Carter (Funimation dub)

Two filler villains who appear only in the anime. They disguise themselves as namekians in an attempt to steal the heroes’ ship so they can get off the planet they are straned on.

The true ruler of the planet trade organization, which he controls through his son Frieza (and, in the movies, his other son Cooler). Cold keeps his own existence a secret and lets his son(s) run the empire's affairs in public. After Frieza is almost killed by Goku, King Cold retrieves his body and has him rebuilt as a cyborg. The two of them then head for Earth to take revenge on the people who did this to Frieza... where Cold and his son are both effortlessly killed by Future Trunks.

Abusive Parents: Implied; during his fight with Goku, Frieza remarks that aside from Goku himself, the only other beings that have ever managed to cause him pain in his true form are his "loving parents." Furthermore, when Trunks has him at his mercy after Frieza is killed, Cold promptly offers Trunks Frieza's place in the empire. And Cooler's comments imply Frieza still got the better end of the deal compared to him.

Anticlimax: Despite being about as strong as Frieza (or stronger according to the anime), he goes down with no fanfare once Trunks blows a hole in his chest.

Authority Equals Asskicking: Downplayed: Cold is far and away more powerful than any soldier in his empire, but he's not as strong as his sons Frieza and Cooler, even though they acknowledge his position.

Beware the Superman: Cold and his family are all mutant, abnormally-powerful examples of their mysterious race. They use that power to run a deadly interstellar crime syndicate.

Brilliant, but Lazy: Just like his son, he never trained in his life and was still stronger than him during his short time on Earth. He could become as strong as his son, if he were to push himself to his limits like Frieza.

Combat Pragmatist: Unlike his son, King Cold is not interested in striking terror into his enemies or proving that he's the strongest in the universe. Before they arrive on Earth, King Cold wants to simply blow up the planet and be done with it instead of trying to fight the Super Saiyan fairly. He also gets on Frieza for 'playing' around with Trunks instead of finishing him off quickly. After Trunks kills Frieza, King Cold 'tricks' Trunks into handing him his sword, thinking it's the source of his power, and tries to kill him with it.

Cool Sword: In reference to the scene where he briefly wields Trunks' sword, he has a sword in some of the video games.

Faux Affably Evil: Even moreso than Frieza. He comes off as very gentle, and doesn't get to do much that was too horrible, but it comes pretty clear when he takes Trunks' sword to try to kill him with it.

Flanderization: At least one Budokai Tenkaiichi-styled fighter heavily associates him with Trunks's sword (to the point where admiring it is his winpose in said game). This is despite the fact that this is merely taken from an attempt to kill Trunks.

Informed Ability: In the Anime, when Freeza and Cold are first landing on Earth, the Z Fighters say that his Power Level is even higher then Freeza's. Considering the fact that Cold died with even less effort on Trunks' part then when he killed Freeza (who is stated to be even stronger in his cyborg form then he was when he fought Goku on Namek), this is a little difficult to believe.

Killed Off for Real: Once Trunks kills him, he's shown in Hell through the anime filler and never returns afterwards. Once his son is reborn, Sorbet suggested resurrecting him too, but Frieza rejects the idea.

Frieza: "Hmph. It is rather better to not revive my father. He's always bossy about this and that. "

Know When to Fold 'Em: According to Resurrection F, he knew about both Majin Buu and Beerus and had warned his son to never try to fight them.

Large and in Charge: He's significantly larger than Frieza's second form, towering over his men.

The Man Behind the Man: Very few people know that he exists. Even Vegeta, a former high ranking minion of Frieza, didn't know about him.

Minor Major Character: He's basically the God-Emperor of the galaxy and for a long time was the galaxy's third strongest warrior. He gets very little screen time before being killed off.

Mind over Matter: He shatters a window with his mind. Unfortunately, this happens to be in space on board his ship, and a few poor members of his crew get sucked into the vacuum to their deaths.

Mutants: He and Frieza are incredibly powerful mutants of their race as a interview of Akira Toriyama revealed. They in fact never needed to train to establish the planet trade organization which takes over many planets over by force.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: He wanted to simply destroy the Earth from space and be done with it. It was Frieza who insisted on landing and killing everyone so he could get revenge on Goku. To say this backfired would be an understatement.

One-Winged Angel: Subverted, he's the only member of his family to not transform. This, combined with the fact he strongly resembles Frieza's second form has made many fans believe he could, but Trunks killed him before he had the chance.

Sparing the Aces: Much like his son, he has a soft spot for talented fighters. After Trunks killed Frieza he offered him a place in his empire, taking Frieza's place which might or might not have been true.

Soft-Spoken Sadist: Like his sons, he's rather soft-spoken. In Kai, he actually sounds like he's always whispering!

Stating the Simple Solution: Before landing on Earth, he suggests just destroying the planet from space. Good thing Frieza is too vindictive to take the suggestion.

The Worf Effect: Used to show how powerful Trunks was by showing him easily wiping him and his son out and how much foreknowledge he had to get rid of the bastards without giving them a chance to do anything.

Wrong Genre Savvy: After seeing Trunks own Frieza with his sword, he assumed it to be the source of Trunks' power. He learned his mistake pretty quickly.

Your Size May Vary: Cold's size varies between about 15 to 30 feet tall between scenes. It's also implied he's decided to go with the second stage transformation as his default form instead of the first due to its close resemblance to his son Frieza's and the imposing stature it gives.

Used to be a scientist for the Red Ribbon Army from the first series which Goku single-handedly destroyed. By Z he has turned himself into an Android (number 20) and plots revenge on Goku, but the plan pretty much backfires on him. He returns again in GT, but doesn't fare any better.

Inverted. In the main universe, he apparently made no less than nineteen androids which all ended up doing a Heel–Face Turn somewhere down the line. Finally averted with 19 (and, if you count the movies, 13, 14 and 15), Cell, and himself, since he could be sure he would stay evil.

17 and 18 stay evil in the original timeline. Problem is, they still ended up killing him.

The Bad Guy Wins: Even though he could only watch his victory from Hell, he is the only villain in the Dragon Ball saga to get exactly what he wanted; the death of Son Goku at the hands of his creations.

Badass Bookworm: He found a way to make a bio android called Cell from four different species (five if the theories about Tien being part alien is true) and incorporate their powers into it, as well as making deadly androids including making himself into one.

Badass Grandpa: Turning himself into a Brain in a Jar with an android body turned him into a supreme fighter. Well, until Super Vegeta shows up. He got reduced further after Piccolo easily beats him up, after he stole most of Piccolo's energy.

Beauty Equals Goodness: Inverted. He's a mean old bastard who looks more haggard than the oldest man on Earth.

Best Served Cold: He waited fourteen years after the fall of the Red Ribbon Army before moving to take his revenge on Goku. He wanted to make sure his androids were more than powerful enough to kill him. In Trunks and Cell's timelines, Goku died before he could act. In the main timeline, Gero messed up by not knowing about the Super Saiyan transformation and badly underestimated Goku and his group.

Big Bad Wannabe: Although he is very powerful, he's many times stronger than Frieza, him underestimating the Saiyans and Piccolo despite his research proves to be his undoing. That and he thought raw power alone was enough to beat a group who have trained their entire lives and he was shortsighted enough to give himself the weaker android design instead of the more powerful endless energy model like Androids 17 and 18.

Brick Joke: Vegeta mentions that his head probably rolls just as well as 19's. It does.

Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: Gero gave everything to kill Goku after he single-handily destroyed the Red Ribbon Army. He eventually gets his wish when Cell kills Goku through his fail self-destruction. However, his obsession with beating Goku cost him his life and his ultimate creation is destroyed by Gohan, the son of the man he spent the last part of his life trying to destroy. Also in the end, his victory turns out to be meaningless since Goku returns to life seven years later and stronger than ever.

Bullying a Dragon: He repeatedly insults and berates 17 and 18 who were rebellious teenagers before he kidnapped them and forcibly turned them into cyborgs. Cyborgs far stronger than he is, mind you. What happened to him was inevitable. And there's a double dose of Too Dumb to Live. When Dr. Gero built 17 and 18, he realized how difficult they were to control, so he came up with a new design for future androids that, while still very strong, were more limited in their power. Sounds pretty savvy, right? Except that he then rebuilt his own body and used the deliberately weakened design rather than the fully powered one that might've enabled him to stand up to 17 and 18 (or better yet, to not even need them in the first place). Yeah, he's a genius, alright.

...But He Sounds Handsome: He certainly doesn't spare words to praise his own work while he's posing as just one of Dr. Gero's creations. Piccolo even deduces correctly that his praise for Gero means that he is Gero before Bulma confirms it.

In-Universe. Gero calculates how strong Goku will become base on his stats from the Saiyan Saga. When Goku asked if they follow them into space, he says it was unnecessary since it was concluded that Goku wouldn't grow that much stronger given his age. This is a big failure considering that Goku is only 28 years old (with the bonus of being dead for a year, which makes him physically 27) which even for a normal human is round about the age of their physical prime. Saiyans have the bonus of aging slower than humans, something Gero should have realized or at least suspected while watching Goku all this time, meaning Goku isn't at the physical peak for a Saiyan. For a scientist who work on modified humans, Gero should have known this.

Another In-Universe example. Gero is surprised that he is easily being beaten by Piccolo after he sucked much of his energy. Piccolo explains to him that since they can raise and amplify their powers in short bursts, the power he stole really didn't amount to much. Which really should be obvious to Gero since from his research, he should have known that all the Earth's fighters can suppress their energy to almost zero and raise their battle power for a short amount of time. Vegeta realizes this just by listening to Raditz's battle with Piccolo and Goku, and Frieza came to the same realization while fighting Goku. Even Captain Ginyu figured it out just by observing Goku without even fighting him. For someone who spied on Goku for almost twenty years, how the heck did Gero miss this detail?

Cut Lex Luthor a Check: He was the leading scientist of the Red Ribbon Army: a military global superpower and rival to Capsule Corp. in terms of its technological output. When Goku puts an end to the RR, he makes death machines, some of which run on perpetual energy, to kill Goku as revenge, and it's known without Goku they'll turn the planet into a hellhole. He probably could have made a huge profit out from his cybernetic enhancements, weapons, etc. Piccolo even lampshades this after chopping off Gero's arm, declaring his efforts to be a "waste of technology."

Defeating the Undefeatable: The primary goal of the androids, outside of world conquest. Gero built the androids specifically to kill Goku. Given all the resources, dedication, and time he put into this, he obviously viewed Goku as almost god-like. Even the weakest android is many times stronger than Frieza and he was considered the strongest in the universe. It was his creation Cell that achieved Gero's dream, both surpassing Goku in power and killing him, although that last part was willing on Goku's end.

Did Not See That Coming: Despite all his monitoring of Goku and his friends, he's caught completely flat-footed by the Super Saiyan transformation. He also couldn't understand why Piccolo was so powerful. His plans would have been completely ruined if he didn't make Androids 16, 17, and 18 so powerful by accident and his Unintentional Backup Plan with creating Cell.

Dirty Coward: His entire fighting style consists of trying to sneak up on people so he can drain their life, and he constantly runs away as soon as The Dog Bites Back.

Disproportionate Retribution: His hatred towards Goku for destroying the Red Ribbon Army caused him to make a series of androids that turn the future timeline into a hellhole and nearly destroy the solar system in the main timeline. It becomes even more disproportionate when you remember that his former boss, Commander Red, wanted the Dragon Balls to wish for height. However, it is possible that Goku's actions also led his son being killed by an enemy bullet when the RR army lost a lot of military might. Said son is the inspiration for Android 16's looks which also explains why he didn't want 16 to fight. We'll never know for sure now that Gero is dead.

Dub Name Change: He's renamed as "Dr. Maki" in the Latin American dub for some reason. However, they start to call him "Dr. Maki Gero" in the episode in which Bulma reveals that Android 20 was Dr. Gero (by having her explain that "Maki Gero" was his full name). From then onwards, he is refered to as "Dr. Maki Gero" for the rest of the series (including GT), though he'd still be called just "Dr. Gero" a few times.

Whether it was actually impossible or he just didn't bother, not following Goku to Namek with his observations and combat data recording truly deserves this trope. What with the Super Saiyan transformation and all…

For someone who researched modifying humans to turn them into killer cyborgs, the fact that he concluded that Goku won't become that much stronger because of his age is a massive miscalculation, especially given that he knows about the Saiyans.

There's also him not realizing that the Z-Fighters can raise their powers in short busts and not taking that into account for his energy-absorbing android models.

Him not knowing that Piccolo has telepathy. He must have seen at several points that Piccolo and his father, King Piccolo, had the ability to communicate with only their thoughts. He obviously didn't know this since he was shocked that Piccolo was able to call for help despite his mouth being covered.

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: According to a recent interview with Akira Toriyama, Gero based Android #16's design off his dead son who was a former Red Ribbon army soldier felled by a bullet. Gero, having a special place in his heart for his son, gave 16 great power and his explosive mechanism. But, not wanting him to be destroyed in battle if possible gave him a gentle personality which caused #16 to be considered a "failed model".

Evil Genius: Not just creating androids, but also making himself into one. He also created Cell, who was proclaimed the Ultimate Life Form thanks to his genetic heritage.

Evil Is Not a Toy: After being defeated by the Z Fighters, he hit the Godzilla Threshold and reactivated Androids 17 and 18, hoping to be able to control them with a remote deactivation device... which they promptly swipe and destroy the moment he lets his guard down.

Evil Is Petty: His entire beef with Goku is simply because Goku cost him his job and funding when Goku destroyed the Red Ribbon Army.

Evil Old Folks: The most notable other than Babidi. He all but destroyed Future Trunks's world and the main timeline over a petty grudge.

Exact Words: When Goku demands that they move the fight to a deserted area, Gero decides to make a deserted area by using his Eye Beams to level the entire city.

Dr. Gero: I cleared the area of innocents, in accordance with your wishes. Do you disagree with my methods?

Go Through Me: When Android 19 is draining Goku's energy, Gero puts himself between the other Z-Fighters and tells them that they're going to just stand there and watch Goku die unless they can get past him, punctuating his statement by shooting Piccolo in the chest with his Eye Beams. Of course, he doesn't account for Vegeta arriving on the scene.

Godzilla Threshold: His reactivation of Android 17 and 18 is a villainous example. He knew how rebellious they were, but having exhausted all other options, and with the Z-Fighters literally at his doorstep, he was desperate enough to give it a try. Oh, sure, they manage to fight off the Z-Fighters with ease... but not before turning on Gero and killing him.

Grumpy Old Man: Perpetual Death Glare, prone to yelling, and he has a very bitter-sounding voice. It's obvious he was meant to be this, even if he wasn't evil.

Immortality Seeker: He tells Androids 17 and 18 that he rebuild himself into an android because he wants to live forever.

Informed Ability: He claims to be stronger than Android 19 after Vegeta effortlessly blows the android apart. He never backs up this claim and gets his butt handed to him by Piccolo, even after he drains almost all of Piccolo's energy.

Irony: His hatred of Goku is the stuff of legends, but he never seemed to realize that in using Goku's DNA in Cell's creation, part of Goku would live on through Cell.

It's Personal: The entire Android/Cell Sage can be seen as one big 'It's Personal' towards Goku since Dr. Gero built the androids specifically to kill Goku as vengeance for destroying the Red Ribbon Army.

It Is Pronounced "Tro-PAY": The US and many European dubs pronounce his name with a soft "G" (making his name sound French) while in Japanese it's a hard "G". (There's actually a pretty good reason for this, as "Ghe-roh" doesn't keep to the Theme Naming as as much as "jhe-roh" seems to.)

Kick the Son of a Bitch: After all the misery he caused in Trunks' future because of his hatred towards one man and being a Smug Snake to boot, no one shed a tear when 17 killed him.

Starts screaming at Vegeta that that's enough after Vegeta beats 19 so brutally that 19 is running for his life. Vegeta quickly calls him out on this, pointing out that they had come to kill him and the Z-Fighters in the first place, and it's only "enough" because Gero is losing.

His entire grudge against Goku stinks of this. Gero only cares that he lost his job when Goku destroyed the Red Ribbons; never mind the fact that they were an evil army who terrorized innocent people, and Gero willingly built killer robots for them to help them do so.

Never My Fault: Created the androids and Cell and left them to terrorise innocent populations to spite Goku for destroying his machines. Machines that he'd knowingly built for an organisation that terrorized innocent populations.

Nice Hat: He wears a rather intimidating Russian toque. It's actually screwed onto his head and locked into place on a set of teeth like a bottle cap, used to disguise his brain dome from being implanted into a cyborg body. However, if he gets hit hard enough, the hat comes off its port and goes flying. The hat gets knocked off twice- the first time, it's to reveal his unusual nature, and he's able to recover the hat. The second time, the hat crashes down a chasm and remains lost.

Not Me This Time: Played with in Movie 7. When Goku first encounters Android 13, he initially thinks that Dr. Gero created him. However, Android 13 corrects him and states that this time, he and his partners, Androids 14 and 15, were created by Gero's computer rather than Gero himself. It's not that he didn't intend to have them created so much as by the time they were created, Gero was long dead.

Cell implies after returning to Earth in his Super Perfect form that Dr. Gero may have created him for the purpose of not just killing Goku and destroying the Earth, but also the entire universe as revenge on life itself for letting the Red Ribbon Army be defeated.

In GT, Gero talks about having a dream to replace all life with artificial beings.

Outside-Context Problem: A very mild example. The Z-Fighters are caught completely by surprise when they learned that they can't sense the androids. They have no readable energy. Androids 19 and 20 can also absorb energy, making any energy base attacks useless until their hands are disable or removed. However, once their gimmicks are rendered useless, they go down very easily.

Pyrrhic Victory: Despite Goku being overpowered and killed by his greatest creation, Cell, the bio-android is killed soon after achieving ultimate perfection. His victory becomes utterly meaningless after Goku comes back to life seven years later with power that completely dwarfs Cell at his best.

Remember the New Guy: He wasn't even mentioned in Dragon Ball's original Red Ribbon Army story line. The anime even had a quietly ignored filler episode that claimed one Dr. Frappe (or Flappe) created androids like #8, only for Toriyama to bring that element back years later. This is later handwaved in one of the databooks by stating that Dr. Gero and Dr. Frappe were partners on the android project. The original dub took this a step farther by having Goku claim that he met Gero back then and was surprised to hear he was still alive. Naturally, subsequent remasters and Kai removed this line in favor of a more accurate translation.

Revenge: It's very disproportionate considering his boss wanting to wish for height growth, which would likely have made him as mad as Black had he known, though it's more likely because Goku managed to remove his funding source.

Small Role, Big Impact: In the timeline Trunks comes from he is never seen, being murdered offscreen by the androids, and he is killed fairly early in the main timeline after getting his butt kicked by Piccolo. Still, his influence causes at least two timelines to turn into hell and nearly destroys the main timeline. Literally every bad thing that happens in Androids/Cell Saga happened because of him and his grudge against Goku.

Starts acting like a big shot and only has the advantage because Goku was ill. As soon as Vegeta destroys 19, he quickly scampers off to activate 17 and 18.

Before then, he acts smug again after he takes Piccolo's energy. He's quickly put in his place after Piccolo Curb Stomps him.

The Stoic: When he was first introduced, he was very much this. He spoke in a calm, monotone voice even as he was killing people and explaining his origins to Goku. However, the moment Goku went Super Saiyan and started to pummel Android 19, he loses this trait, going from concern, to cocky, to full blown panic after he realizes how badly outmatched he is.

A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Gero's intention when creating the androids. After Goku destroyed the Red Ribbon Army, he wanted to create a fighter that could beat Goku on his terms and inspire the same sense of fear and dread he gave the army. Cell came closest to doing this to Goku (if only because he was the second of Gero's creations who fought him), but even then, he never once displayed fear of Cell, no matter how much stronger he was than him, and died on his own terms.

That Man Is Dead: During his initial encounter with the Z Fighters, he claims Dr. Gero has passed away, and that he is simply another one of his creations.

Theme Naming: Given that living things in the Dragon Ball universe are mostly named after food or concept related to eating, what's a totally appropriate name for someone who creates facsimiles of life and spits upon the real thing? Why, a Japanese word for vomit, of course.

When you think about it, all the androids. When he last monitored Goku on Earth, the highest power level on record was Vegeta's Great Ape form which had a power level around 180,000. He didn't see any of the fights on Namek, so he calculated how powerful to make the androids. The weakest android is many stronger than Frieza, who was considered the undisputed strongest in the universe. If the Namek/Frieza Saga never happened or they never met Frieza, Androids 19 and 20 would have destroyed all the Earth's fighters with little trouble.

It goes further than that: Androids #16, #17 and #18 were his strongest series and it showed when they demonstrated enough power to easily best a normal Super Saiyan - something he didn't even account for.note It's largely implied that it's the power generators that they run on that made them so powerful, so that was more dumb luck. On top of that, at least #16 and #18 ( and perhaps even #17) have self-detonators - #16 in particular, felt his was powerful enough to insta-kill even (Cell Games era) Goku despite his power being close to Perfect Cell. And as for Cell, his self-destruction ability can literally cause an Earth-Shattering Kaboom. Gero really, really wanted Goku dead.

Too Dumb to Live: Kidnapping two rebellious teenagers and making them more powerful than you is already stupid enough. Repeatedlymouthing off at said rebellious teenagers, whom, again, you made to be more powerful than you, is like hanging a "kill me" sign on your own neck.

Villainous Breakdown: Begins to have one when it becomes obvious he had no chance against the Z Fighters despite all of his calculations and then escalates as #17 and #18 turn on him.

Villainous Legacy: Gero dies fairly early on, but his creations continue to plague the characters for the rest of the season, causing far more trouble than Gero could ever have hoped to.

Underestimating Badassery: He started monitoring Goku and his friends not long after the defeat of the Red Ribbon Army, gathering data on his powers and calculating a pattern for his increases in strength. Research was abandoned before they left for Namek, as Gero felt he could accurately gauge how strong they would be upon returning and set the power of himself and 19 above that. He was thus unprepared for two Super Saiyans and a fused Namekian.

Unintentional Backup Plan: If you consider that Dr. Gero's final creation, Cell, eventually succeeds in killing Goku, exactly as Gero had planned for the androids, and was the closest any of his creations came to his implied dream for the total genocide of humanity.

Unskilled, but Strong: He is never shown using any advanced fighting techniques or styles whatsoever. Instead he relies heavily on his power and using sneak attacks to grab his target so he can drain their energy to become stronger. Once his power fails him, he's completely helpless and can only run to get backup.

Villainous Breakdown: He starts to lose his composure after Vegeta destroys 19. It goes further downhill for him after Piccolo proves himself stronger than him and he's forced to awaken 17 and 18. He utterly loses it once 17 takes his remote and crushes it.

The final android created by Dr. Gero whose objective is to kill Goku. He almost does just that (with a tiny bit of help from Goku's heart condition), but is attacked by Vegeta before that can happen. Android 19 just loseshis head after Vegeta goes Super Saiyan.

Asshole Victim: Considering the fact that he ruthlessly beat on Goku and started to suck the life out of him while Goku was helpless and incapacitated from the heart virus, it's more or less impossible to feel any pity for him when Vegeta blows him to smithereens.

Brain in a Jar: Just like Gero, he has a glass dome covering his brain concealed by a hat, only his brain is purely electromechanical in nature.

Butt-Monkey: His return in GT is just to pay homage to the way he got axed the first time around- he got blown up and had nothing left but his broken head clattering from the wreckage and rolling to a stop rather pitifully. Off-screen. Yep- he wasn't even worth the trouble of another big death scene, and was reduced to a quick gag.

He gets his ass handed to him completely and utterly by Super Saiyan Vegeta.

Before then, Goku dominated him even as his strength was being drained by the heart virus. Once Goku waste a massive amount of energy using a Kamehameha that 19 greedily absorbed, the table turned and Goku gets the crap beating out of him.

Determinator: Absolutely refuses to let go of Vegeta once he manages to start absorbing his energy. Vegeta, for his part, commends him for this right before ripping his arms clean off of his body.

Dirty Coward: He gleefully beats a sick Goku senseless and drains his energy... but when he gets his ass handed to him by the perfectly healthy Vegeta, he flips out and tries to run for his life.

Jobber: Basically existed so Vegeta would have something to beat up on when he first became a Super Saiyan.

Kick Them While They Are Down: When Goku is incapacitated by his heart virus in the midst of their fight, 19 quickly beats him down and starts sucking the life out of him... which Vegeta quickly puts a stop to.

Killer Robot: Created to kill Goku. Almost success thanks to Goku catching his heart virus.

Off with His Head!: Like Guldo, this was caused by Vegeta, but unlike Guldo, Vegeta blew him up first.

Outside-Context Problem: Like the other androids, his energy can't be sensed by the Earth's fighters. He can also absorb energy through his hand like Android 20. Despite this, he's killed quickly once Vegeta removes his hands.

Running Gag: Each time he gets killed, all that remains is his head, with the cranium blown out, his eyes all derpy, and his mouth hanging open.

Sadist: Takes great delight in draining his victims and beating them senseless, giggling like a crazed child while he does so. You can also see the joy on his face as he sucks the life out of Goku.

Smug Snake: He acts like a big shot, and only has the upper hand against Goku because of the heart virus. As soon as Vegeta kicks his ass and rips his arms off, he tries to make a break for it.

The Stoic: When he's first seen, he didn't smile and had a largely blanked expression. Even when Goku was beating on him, he showed no real emotion. He did laugh manically after absorbing Goku's Kamehameha and started to beat him up and sucked his energy. His cold demeanor completely shatters after Vegeta tears him up, leaving him quivering in fear.

Undignified Death: Loses his composure when Vegeta kicks his ass, and finally tries to run for his life after Vegeta tears his hands off.

Unskilled, but Strong: Just like Android 20, he is shown using no fighting style or techniques. When Goku went Super Saiyan, 19 kept bull charging and didn't even try to evade or block Goku's attacks. Instead, he relies on his high endurance and his power absorption to get ahead. The moment he loses his ability to drain energy, he becomes completely defenseless and tries to run.

Villainous Breakdown: Both figuratively and literally - after realizing that he has no chance against Vegeta, he ends up running away from him screaming his head off.

The Worf Effect: He's much stronger than Frieza and it took Super Saiyan Goku everything he had to beat him. Even when falling sick, Goku still easily beats him up and Vegeta has no trouble with him at all.

Your Head Asplode: Inverted — 19's head is the only part of his body that doesn't end up exploding from Vegeta's Big Bang Attack.

Dirty Coward: One of them threatens to slit Krillin's throat in an attempt to get Gohan to back off.

Enfant Terrible: Created with the sole purpose of torturing the Z-Fighters to force Gohan to reveal his hidden power.

Giggling Villains: They have no dialog. They only laugh and giggle, when they're not screaming in terror and pain after Gohan is finished with them.

Glass Cannon: Despite being as powerful as Cell, they're nowhere near as durable, not even regenerating from wounds that Cell had previously been shown shrugging off. Of course, it was Gohan who was hitting them, so they were likely just outclassed.

Ax-Crazy: He is a gleeful sadist that takes joy in actively harming others.

Bad Boss: His Establishing Character Moment is having Spopovich and Yamu killed on the spot after they give him Gohan's stolen Ki, with the Supreme Kai outright saying that Babidi always kills his minions when he doesn't need them anymore. This also kills him in the end regarding his treatment of Majin Buu, who after realizing he doesn't have to take his shit, smashes his head apart like a watermelon.

Big Bad Wannabe: In spite of his dark magic powers, he's really no match for any of the Z Fighters and is completely reliant on the likes of Dabura and Majin Buu to do all the fighting for him.

Bullying a Dragon: Unlike his father who favored the carrot (cake), Babidi preferred to use the stick in controlling Buu. Whenever Buu showed some disobedience, Babidi would threaten to reseal him. This continued until Goku scolds Buu for letting such a weak coward order him around and Babidi shortly found himself lacking a head.

Combat Commentator: In the anime, he watches the fight with Kid Buu in Hell, and unlike all of the other villains, he wants Goku to win because Buu killed him.

Babidi: Do it, Goku! Beat the Buu!

Deadline News: Theatrically declares the beginning of his genocidal rampage through a global telepathic broadcast. Keeps giving updates to the increasingly-terrified populace as he makes progress, only to have his last broadcast show everyone Goku's Super Saiyan 3 transformation followed by Buu and Goku's first fight, and then his own death.

Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Despite Goku fighting evenly with Majin Buu (who up to this point had no equal), Babidi still felt brave enough to flip off Goku when he says that Buu was far too talented of a fighter to be controlled by someone like Babidi. In the Japanese text, he flips off Goku when he says that he will ask Yemma to really torture him in Hell.

First, he tries to keep Piccolo from killing him by pointing out without someone to seal Majin Buu away, he'll destroy the world. Piccolo points out that's what Babidi intends to do anyway, so the end result would be no different, and bisects him.

Babidi gets Buu to heal him, and threatens him into compliance, with the threat of sealing him away. When Goku challenges them, he tries to repeat the threat only for Buu to point out that if he does, Goku would kill Babidi easily. Luckily for him, Buu is willing to fight Goku anyway.

The last time proves fatal, as trying to control Majin Buu through the fear of a spell falls apart when Buu simply crushes his windpipe, rendering him unable to speak, and kills him.

Dirty Coward: Justified since he's weaker than most of the villains at this point, and he relies more on his minions since he knows he's done once one gets him. Goku even outright calls Babidi a "cowardly worm" while criticizing Buu for letting Babidi boss him around.

Enemy Mine: Sort of. He doesn't directly aid Goku in regards to defeating Kid Buu, but he cheers him on solely because he wants Buu dead as revenge for killing him in the first place.

Epic Fail: During Vegeta's fight with Pui Pui, Babidi transforms the environment into that of Pui Pui's home planet of Zoon, which has gravity 10 times that of Earth, in order to give Pui Pui an advantage. It backfires completely, because not only does Vegeta regularly train in 450 times Earth's gravity, but his own home planet of Vegeta had gravity equal to that of Zoon anyway.

Vegeta: Maybe... if your planet had five hundred times Earth's gravity, you'd have an advantage, but ten? I don't even feel it!

Evil Is Not a Toy: With some encouragement from Goku, Majin Buu eventually turns on Babidi and kills him.

Faux Affably Evil: Acts dignified and polite when he's in control. The moment things go wrong, he turns into a Spoiled Brat, throwing tantrums and whining. He's also extremely sadistic and loves to torture people.

Genre Blindness: It never occurred to him that Buu could betray him despite Dabura's warning to him.

Hate Sink: Like Raditz, Babidi seems to be made to be as unlikable as possible and thus all the more satisfying when Main Buu kills him. He's a sadistic, utterly callous villain who's also an idioticDirty Coward, in stark contrast to the much more likable Majin Buu and Dabura. He's up there with Frieza in being utterly despicable without even the excuse of being born evil, and as horrible as Frieza was even he was competent and had an Evil Is Cool, while Babidi is just a Big Bad Wannabe.

Hoist by His Own Petard: If Buu turning on him wasn't enough, in Dragon Ball Heroes, he can be absorbed by Kid Buu.

Irony: In the anime, he actively cheers Goku and Vegeta on from Hell during the fight with Kid Buu, wanting Buu to die for betraying and killing him, but doesn't notice (or seem to care) that the fat Majin Buu, the one who actually killed him, lives on.

Karmic Death: Since Majin Buu's release from his ensealment, Babidi threatened Buu with sealing Buu back up if he doesn't submit to him and/or obey his command, and was verbally abusive. After Babidi makes the mistake of telling off Buu for not killing Goku when he had the chance, Buu decides that he has had enough, and after tricking Babidi into coming closer, he strangles Babidi so that he can't utter the incantation that would seal him away, and then punches his head off in a bloody mist. To add an extra heap of karma on top, Babidi spent most of the arc killing his minions once he had no more use for them, leaving nobody around to defend him once Buu turns on him. And Buu kills him for the same reason.

Killing Spopovich and Yamu even after they followed his orders. And afterwards, he killed a random bystander just for not knowing where Goten, Trunks, or Piccolo are.

Him showing the entire world Buu turning entire cities into candy and chocolate before eating them alive. He then reminds everyone that he will have the Earth destroyed in five days if Trunks, Piccolo, and Goten don't reveal themselves. And that random bystander he murdered, he made his head explode from the inside out and broadcasted it.

Kick the Son of a Bitch: Not a single damn was given once Buu killed him, even though Buu went completely on a rampage without anyone to control him.

Moral Myopia: He wants to kill the Supreme Kai because he killed his father to stop Majin Buu's rampage. Babidi's father caused the death of millions if not billions by unleashing Buu, including all of the Supreme Kais except one. Babidi also regularly murders others, including his own men, without care.

More Than Mind Control: The way Babidi's control spell works is to seek the evil within a person's heart and manipulate it into making a person want to serve them. It is mind control, but it relies on the victim's willingness to be enslaved and so can be overridden with sufficiently strong willpower or emotion. (Vegeta's absurdly strong sense of Pride allows him to exert his own will and ignore Babidi's orders, for example.)

Non-Action Big BadWannabe: Babidi takes this to a ridiculous level, relying on taking control of others and making them fight in his place while screaming orders at them. Even in Budokai Tenkaichi 3, his attacks are mostly summoning others to do his dirty work.

Psychopathic Manchild: Despite being a centuries old wizard, he acts like a spoiled child. He is prone to throwing tantrums, whining, and bullying others when things don't go his way. He also treats hurting and killing people like some kind of game, laughing in delight when Buu ate entire cities or when his former loyal servant Dabura was beaten senseless and devoured.

Sadist: Just like his "father", he loves destruction and killing as much as they do.

Secret Identity Apathy: After Buu heals him, his immediate priority is to hunt down Goten, Trunks, and Piccolo. Since he doesn't know their names, he gives a general description to the people of Earth while demanding they show themselves. One man recognizes the description and tells Babidi their names... and Babidi promptly kills him, stating he couldn't care less what their names are.

Spoiled Brat: Goes hand and hand with him being a Psychopathic Manchild. He rants and yells when things don't go his way and refuses to consider that he can be wrong. This really stands out since he's one of oldest characters introduced in the series.

Squishy Wizard: Only villainous example of this series. His magic is very powerful. He can kill weaker people from far distances, teleport others to different planets, and his curse allows him to control monsters like Dabura if they have any evil in their hearts. He is also a weakling who is nearly killed by Piccolo. His only close combat defense is a barrier than can be shattered if enough force is applied and a type of gel that can cause a person to explode, which can be blown off.

Take Over The Universe: Initially, he had plans for universal domination after Majin Buu was revived, but Vegeta blew up his spaceship. So he settled for terrorizing Earth instead. Probably should have forced them to build a new spaceship instead.

This Cannot Be!: His reaction when Majin Vegeta actively resists his commands in favor of going after Goku: according to Babidi, this is the first time any of his brainwashed slaves have ever defied him.

Babidi: How can the possessed say no to the possessor?!

13 Is Unlucky: Even more meta; the Babidi Saga is the thirteenth saga of Dragon Ball Z.

Time Abyss: At least five million years old, as his father was killed then.

Dabura, who has been nothing but loyal to Babidi, warns him that Buu is uncontrollable and that the demon will eventually kill him. Instead of even considering Dabura's warning, Babidi throws a tantrum, yelling that he didn't need Dabura anymore since he had Buu. By the time Buu turns on him, Babidi had absolutely no one who would save him.

Ungrateful Bastard: Towards his loyal right-hand man Dabura. It backfires when Buu finally realizes (working off a hint from Goku) that he doesn't actually have to take it... The Z Fighters and his two Dragons were all stronger than he was, so first Dabura, then Buu, basically served as his bodyguards.

Villains Want Mercy: When Piccolo has him cornered, Babidi begs for his life, pointing out that without him, Majin Buu will be completely uncontrollable and destroy the Earth. Piccolo states that it's no different than what Babidi plans to do anyway, and he and the Z Fighters will stop Buu before slicing Babidi in half.

We Have Reserves: As long as he succeeds at awakening Majin Buu, everyone is expendable.

Weak, but Skilled: Played With. Supreme Kai stated that while Babidi is physically weak his magical powers were so great that it may take all of the Z Fighters to defeat him. However, it isn't Babidi's magic in of itself that are dangerous, but his ability to enslave powerful servants who have even a hint of evil within them and uses them as his bodyguards like Dabura. His spell also makes those he posses stronger by bringing out their inner evil. By himself, however, Babidi is basically helpless outside of a few defense spells that can kill weaker people like Spopovich, and is nearly killed by Piccolo who was in full Papa Wolf mood since he believed Gohan was killed by Buu at Babidi's orders.

You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: His philosophy, since the only ally he considers important at all is Majin Buu. His putting all of his eggs in the strongest basket he has at the time and discarding ones he's already used comes back to bite him several times, and ultimately he falls victim to this trope as well.

Your Head Asplode: Buu kills him by punching him in the face so hard that his head explodes.

Adaptational Badass: In the manga, Dabura's skills and abilities are extremely lacking in comparison to his anime counterpart. He mostly uses sneak attacks and in fact he never once throws a single physical punch in the entire manga. He's unable to overpower a rusty SSJ Gohan and is quickly dealt with by Buu before he can even throw a single attack. The anime, however, amps him up, allowing him to hold his own against Gohan and even standing up to Buu for quite some time.

Mere minutes after being introduced he obliterated Kibito, turned Krillin and Piccolo into stone statues and fended off both Goku and Vegeta. After that, he dominated Gohan.

He got on the receiving end of one of these after Buu was awakening, having his eyes gouged and then being turned into a cookie and eaten.

Dark Is Not Evil: Postmortem, when he pulls a Heel–Face Turn in the afterlife. In fact, given his benevolent nature in Sand Land, this may simply be a return to type.

Dragon-in-Chief: Is much more of a threat than Babidi. It was actually his plan to turn Vegeta evil that allowed Majin Buu to be revived.

The Dreaded: The Supreme Kai and Kibito are horrified when they learned Babidi had charmed Dabura, the King of the Demon World. Goku and Vegeta, however, don't think much of him since he's only as strong as Perfect Cell.

Evil Sounds Deep: In both the dub and the Japanese version, he has a deep, very regal voice. Fitting for someone called the Demon King.

Eye Scream: Majin Buu punches his eyes out shortly after being freed from the seal. He didn't blind him though. It also qualifies under Disproportionate Retribution, seeing how he did this after Dabra called him a bumbling idiot.

Genius Bruiser: He's almost as strong as Perfect Cell and is also extremely clever. During his fight with Gohan, he tricks Gohan several times and sees through all of Gohan's moves. It is also his plan to turn Vegeta that allows Majin Buu to be released. Once he sensed how powerful Buu is, he begs Babidi to seal him up before he turns on him.

The Ghost: In the Xenoverse games. Dabura's younger sister, Towa, is a time-traveler screwing with history, and wants revenge on Buu for her brother's death. Yet, so far, Dabura has not actually appeared in the games, except for his cookie form being an equippable accessory for the player character in Xenoverse 2.

Heel–Face Turn: Anime only and it's more due to the enviroment he's now stuck in turning him into a Love Freak, but Dabra does help the spirits of Chi Chi, Bulma and Videl try to look for Gohan in the afterlife and comforts them when it doesn't seem they're able.

Ironic Hell: He was sent to Heaven for his crimes. King Yemma believed he'd enjoy it too much in Hell. He did eventually reform himself there in the anime, as Chi Chi, Bulma, and Videl discovered, to the point he became a Love Freak.

Whether or not the curse comes into the equation, Dabura remains admirably loyal to Babidi even as he is abandoned by the ungrateful mage, warning his master that Buu will not stay loyal and will be the death of him if not quickly sealed. He was, naturally, completely right.

He also challenges Gohan, Goku, and Vegeta to attack him all at once, thinking he'd be too much for any one of them (an overestimation of his power, but it's the thought that counts). When Babidi asked him where he'd like the fight to take place, he requested a planet similar to Earth, so as not to give him an unfair advantage.

PhysicalSatanic Archetype: Whereas Demon King Piccolo earned his title through a life of murder and terror, Dabra literally is the King of Demon World itself. He is explicitly said to be around the same power level as Cell which means up to that point he was the second strongest villain or equal to the strongest one the Z Fighters had ever faced. Of course, Goku was stronger than Cell at this point by far. Dabra is about equal to Gohan, who defeated Cell, but Gohan's skills had explicitly degraded by that point.

Redemption Equals Death: Inverted. He becomes good after dying, thanks to a combination of not being under Babidi's control anymore and being sent to Heaven.

Shoot the Medic First: Whether it was intentional or not, the first person Dābura attacked when Babidi ordered him to lure in the Dragon Team was Kibito, the only person with healing capabilities with the heroes. Given the fact that he and Babidi are very familiar with the Kaiōshin and Kibito, it is likely Dābura's targeting of Kibito was intentional.

Story-Breaker Power: Dabura's Super Spit that can turn anyone hit by it into stone, regardless of power. If you're not expecting it or don't know about this ability, you're almost guaranteed to be a lawn statue. Once hit, you are for all intents and purposes dead and the spell can only be reverse with Dabura's death. Thankfully, spit tends to be slow, making it somewhat easy to dodge and if the spit hit clothing, they can be removed.

Upon Buu's awakening, he thought the reviving spell was a failure since Buu acted like a little kid and not the terror of the universe he heard about. He outright called Buu a bumbling idiot and mused how Buu doesn't understand him. That is before Buu punches him in the eyes and knocks him into a cliff, critically wounding him. After that, he tries to kill Buu, recognizing that a demon of that power wouldn't stay loyal to Babidi.

He goes back and forward with the Saiyans. Although he recognizes their power, he thinks he can easily beat them and expected Pui Pui and Yakon to make quick work of them. When they failed, he dismisses them for being careless. Fighting a rusty Gohan only increased his assumption that the Saiyans are beings he can easily handle, never recognizing that Goku and Vegeta are much stronger than him.

Undying Loyalty: Curse or not, he is by far the most loyal minion on Babidi's side. He goes as far as to fight Buu, trying to save Babidi from the demon's eventual betrayal. Babidi, on the other hand, sees Dabura as nothing more than a tool that has out lived it usefulness.

Worf Effect: He's about equal to Perfect Cell, can use magic, and is able to fight back a rusty Gohan. Buu easily beats him up and turns him into a cookie before eating him.

Pui Pui (プイプイ)

Babidi's alien minion from the planet Zoon. Tasked to fight the Z-Fighters so Babidi can resurrect Majin Buu, Pui Pui faces Vegeta. Boasting about how Zoon has 10 times the gravity of Earth, Pui Pui is humiliated and then killed by Vegeta after he tells Pui Pui that he trained at 500 times Earth's gravity.

The victim of an outright one sided take of the trope against Vegeta (who didn't even bother going Super Saiyan).

Hilariously carried over into Buu's Fury for the GBA. Without level grinding at all, you can kill him in a single punch. He has one of the lowest hp counts in the game (including the early random enemies.)

Evil Gloating: Especially about how his planet has higher gravity than Earth's.

Gone Horribly Right: He had Babidi turn the battlefield in his homeworld, with 10 times the gravity of Earth. It just happens that his opponent comes from a homeworld with the same gravity and is used to a gravity of 500 times that of Earth...

Heavy Worlder: Boasted about how his home world has 10 times the gravity of Earth.

Smug Snake: Definitely. He was way too confidant that no matter how strong the Z-Fighters were, they wouldn't be any match for him, especially considering he didn't have a clue who they were or exactly how powerful they really were. Vegeta proved him dead wrong the moment they started fighting.

Underestimating Badassery: To say that he underestimated Vegeta would be, well, an understatement. It becomes even funnier when he thought he had the home advantage since his planet had ten times the Earth's gravity. That's the exact same gravity of Vegeta's birth planet, and even then, Vegeta had trained under literally hundreds of times Eath's gravity prior to their battle.

Wacky Guy: His very emotional and ineffectual tactics against Vegeta show him to be this.

Death by Gluttony: Subverted. Dabura, Supreme Kai, and Gohan assume Yakon did this when eating so much of Goku's Super Saiyan energy that he explodes. Vegeta, however, is sharp enough to catch that Goku briefly changed to Super Saiyan 2, drastically increasing the amount of energy Yakon was trying to inhale all at once, overloading and killing him.

Small Role, Big Impact: He only shows up to fight Goku and be killed, but the fight reveals to Vegeta that Goku is able to become a Super Saiyan 2. This reawakens Vegeta's inferiority complex to the point he's willing to let Babidi possess him for more power, setting in motion his fight with Goku and Buu's freedom.

Villainous Glutton: He can eat light and sucked Goku until he turned back to normal from being a Super Saiyan.

Two human fighters possessed and empowered by Babidi, sent to infiltrate the 25th Tenkaichi Budokai and to drain all of Gohan's ki in order to draw out enough energy to revive Majin Buu. Once their job was done, Babidi, having no more use for them, has them both killed.

Alas, Poor Villain: In-Universe, the Z Senshi are horrified at the way Babidi callously has them obliterated even after they accomplished their task for him. Even Gohan finds it sickening, and need we remind you these are the same two guys who jammed a needle into his side, sucked out almost all of his energy, and in Spopovich's case, ruthlessly beat Videl within an inch of her life.

Alien Blood: Probably related to the spell, Spopovich has purple blood. He and Yamu also have purple tongues.

Asshole Victim: In spite of their Alas, Poor Villain moment and the fact that they were brainwashed the entire time, it's noticeable that when Bulma uses the Dragon Balls later on the same day to bring back everyone who died and wasn't evil they're not among those resurrected.

The Brute: Spopovich. He isn't known for much except for how he tortured Videl to get back at her father for Curb Stomping him at the last Tournament.

Cold-Blooded Torture: The minute he stops holding back, Spopovich goes out of his way to do this to Videl; by the end of the match, he's sadistically stomping on Videl's head while Videl is screaming in agony.

Dumb Muscle: Spopovich. He doesn't seem too much even before his face-heel turn.

Even Evil Has Standards: In spite of being enslaved by Babidi's magic, Yamu retains enough of his humanity to be disgusted and angered by Spopovich's torture of Videl in their battle. When the latter was about to kill the girl, he could tolerate it no longer and erupts:

Yamu:ENOUGH, Spopovich! (With a look of genuine pity and sadness for Videl.) This isn't what we came here to do; ring-out the girl and finish this match.

Evil Is Petty: Spopovich beat Videl within an inch of her life because he lost to her father. It's even implied that he became Babidi's servant just so he could get back at Mr. Satan.

Foreshadowing: Spopovich, having grown frustrated with being beaten by Mr. Satan, is enslaved by Babidi and given a power-up which he then uses to get back at his rival. Vegeta would later repeat this. In fact, Vegeta seems to have been inspired by it.

In the Back: Yamu is killed after Pui Pui shoots him in from behind as he runs for his life.

It's Personal: Inadvertently invokes this against Gohan after brutally taking down Videl. Subverted, though, as seen in The Unfought below.

Kick the Dog: Spopovich's entire fight against Videl, once he starts fighting seriously.

Kick Them While They Are Down: Spopovich vs. Videl fight, when Videl finally manages to concede that she's in over her head against the magically-enhanced Spopovich and lets herself get thrown out of the ring... only for Spopovich to grab her leg in mid-air and toss her back in, returning her to a Curb-Stomp Battle that seemed to be doing its damnedest to rival the Frieza vs. Vegeta fight in sheer brutality.

No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Spopovich gives a brutal one to Videl in their fight, to the point that Videl is left crying in agony.

Sins of Our Fathers: Spopovich gave himself over to Babidi and then entered the tournament to get revenge on Mr. Satan for humiliating him in the last tournament. He takes great pleasure in torturing Videl and nearly kills her before Yamu stops him.

Took a Level in Badass: They were normal humans prior to their brainwashing. Spopovich in fact lost to Mr. Satan at the last tournament, fairly quickly at that. Post-brainwashing, they have flight, super-strength, and energy blasts. They're still incredibly weak by the standards of the main characters, but far stronger than any regular human.

The Unfought: After Spopovich cripples Videl, an angry Gohan assures him that they will face off in the next round, where Gohan hoped to seek revenge. After it becomes clear who Spopovich and Yamu are working for, however, Gohan never gets the chance to make good on that promise, as the duo are killed off by Babidi and his minions. Yamu is never even shown fighting someone before his death.

Unskilled, but Strong: In terms of skill, Videl is actually better than Spopovich, but thanks to Babidi, he has power that far exceeds that of a normal human. It's actually what tips the Z-fighters off that there is something wrong since they can't fathom how someone could be that unskilled but so strong.

Why Am I Ticking?: How Babidi kills Spopovich. He makes him expand until he explodes from the inside out.

Would Hit a Girl: Spopovich doesn't just hit Videl; he beats her to a bloody pulp to the point where she's screaming and crying from the pain, and is only stopped from killing her by Yamu ordering him to stop.

Bad Boss: Possibly. We don't see a whole lot of his interactions with Buu, but we do know that Buu rebelled against him somewhat regularly. With that said, he favored the carrot (cake) when it came to handling Buu, something Babidi should have taken notes from.

Evil Brit: The Funimation and Ocean dubs give him a thick Cockney accent.

For the Evulz: He takes advantage of Majin Buu's killing spree to go on one of his own, stating that since Buu's going to destroy the world anyway, he can do whatever he wants. Since he later drops this and decides to try to kill Buu himself so he can go on killing people, it's clear Van Zant loves hurting and killing people so much that all he needs is an excuse.

Hate Sink: Everything he does is basically meant to make the viewer hate him.

Humans Are the Real Monsters: He uses Buu's killing spree as an excuse to go on one of his own, and eventually shoots and nearly kills Mr. Satan and Bee, causing Buu to spawn Evil Buu. From here on out, the Buu Saga consists of the rest of the universe paying the price for Van Zant's actions. The episode he appears in to kickstart this is called "The Evil of Men."

Kick the Dog: Literally; the first thing he does upon finding Buu is shoot Bee, the little puppy, for fun.

Rich Bastard: in the manga and Japanese anime, it's implied that he comes from a wealthy background or family, as Smitty calls him "Young Master".

Small Role, Big Impact: He's only around for a couple episodes, but it's because of him that Evil Buu/Super Buu came into existence.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: As he caused the creation of Super Buu, he is indirectly responsible for all the bad stuff that happens afterward.

Villain Has a Point: In the english version of the anime, he points out what a lousy hero Mr Satan is, cooking meals like a nanny for Buu while he is destroying their world. While Satan was trying to reform him, from an outsider's viewpoint it just looked like he was saving his own neck.

Villainous Friendship: With his lackey, Smitty. Zant calls him an "old friend" at one point, and they do get along fairly well. Zant asked Smitty to help him kill people because he wanted him to join in on the fun.

Smitty

Voiced by: Yasuhiko Kawazu (Japanese)

Voiced by: Ted Cole (Ocean dub)

Voiced by: Duncan Brannan (Funimation dub)

Voiced by: Armando Réndiz (Latin American)

Van Zant's toady. He also plays a part in the creation of Evil Buu (and, by proxy, Super Buu).

Asshole Victim: Just like his boss. He mercilessly kills several people and is shown visibly enjoying himself despite his initial reluctance.

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